INDIGENOUS Mapuche campaigners and striking lorry drivers clashed in front of Chile’s presidential palace on Thursday during rival protests.

Police used water cannon to break up the two groups of demonstrators outside La Moneda palace and a central square in the capital Santiago.

The convoy, organised by the National Cargo Transport Confederation (CNTC), had come hundreds of miles from the south-central Araucania region, towing burnt-out vehicles they said had been torched by Mapuches angry at logging on their ancestral land.