The British government has announced a series of spending reforms designed to carry the UK through the 2015 budget year.

According to the BBC, the plan calls for some $130 billion in cuts to welfare, various governmental departments and the public sector to help fill a multi-billion-dollar budget gap within the next five years.

As The Associated Press reports, the cuts are being described as the most significant to government spending in decades, with tens of thousands of jobs on the line in the coming years. One of the more significant cuts, according to the BBC, is a 20 percent drop in government funding for police by 2015, at a rate of four percent per year.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe, people are taking to the streets in protest of new government austerity measures. Strikes are being held throughout France, mainly in opposition to a government proposal to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.