Rome  - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has dismissed criticism of his government's economic policies during protest in Rome involving hundreds of thousands of workers, students and pensioners.

"It is impossible to speak and reason with the deaf," Berlusconi said in Prague late Saturday, where he was attending a US-European Union summit.

Berlusconi also disputed that 2.7 million attended Saturday's protest, a figure claimed by the organizer, Italy's largest labour union confederation, the leftist CGIL.

Berlusconi cited Rome's police department which said 200,000 attended the protest marches that culminated in a rally at the city's ancient Circus Maximus arena.

In his keynote speech at the rally, CGIL chief Guglielmo Epifani urged Berlusconi to begin talks with unions to discuss "in a serene, serious and ordered way" how to deal with Italy's economic woes, including rising unemployment.

Epifani made his appeal before a sea of red-flags, many of them bearing the communist hammer-and-sickle emblem.

Many of Italy's left-wing groups, including the main centre-left opposition Democratic Party adhered to the protest.

CGIL, said it had organized 40 special trains, two boats and 4,800 buses to bring Italians from across the country to Rome for the event. dpa