Madrid - Spanish police on Thursday foiled plans by 100 gays and lesbians to stage a kiss-in on the route the visiting Pope Benedict XVI took through Madrid, blocking the protesters before they could meet up.

The activists had planned to join up on the major artery Calle Serrano along which the pope later travelled in his white, bullet-proof popemobile for a welcoming ceremony in Plaza Cibeles square.

But a few hundred metres from their planned meeting point and an hour before the pope passed by, a cordon of police block the demonstrators' way and forced them to disperse.

About 50 of the protesters kissed each other in front of the police, who outnumbered them, in the central Plaza Colon square less than a kilometre from the papal ceremony.

Nearby, a group of young Roman Catholics chanting “Here are the youth of the pope” were kept apart from the protesters by police.