Egyptians angry with the government about high prices set fire to shops and two schools in a Nile Delta textile town on Sunday after police thwarted plans for a general strike and countrywide protests.
Police fought battles through the streets of Mahalla el-Kubra with the protesters, led by textile workers who tried to go on strike for more pay to compensate for inflation.
The demonstrators set ablaze a primary school, a preparatory school and a travel agency, among other shops in the working-class town, and stopped an incoming train by putting blazing tyres on the railway tracks, witnesses said.
Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the protests. Some 40 people were injured and hundreds of others had breathing problems from gas inhalation, security sources said.
Protesters threw stones at police, attacked police vehicles and tore down the posters of the ruling party's candidates in Tuesday's local elections, witnesses said.
Egypt's urban consumer inflation jumped to an 11-month high of 12.1 percent in the year to February. Higher prices for food have hit the poorest Egyptians hardest.
Independent workers groups and opposition parties had hoped the 20,000 workers at state-owned Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla would go on strike as the centrepiece of a national day of protest at economic grievances.
But a strong police presence, stormy weather and stern warnings from the government helped to thwart their plans.
Across the country police arrested more than 200 people. In the capital riot police hemmed in small groups of protesters.
The call for a national general strike had won overt support from the anti-government protest movement Kefaya and some small opposition parties and movements. The influential Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition force, gave it tacit approval but said it would not participate.
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