Anarchists split the demonstration against the draft and began to throw Molotov bombs on Syntagma Square. Police responded with the use of tear gas and protesters began to disperse. Police and anarchists chased around the city center. Incidents are currently taking place along Panepistimiou and Akadimias boulevards.
The demonstration against the labour relations reform draft organized by the unions of public and private employees which began at 11.00 am was split on the square outside the Parliament around 1.30 pm by a large group of youths dressed in black and with covered faces that started to throw bombs. Protesters who were outside the Parliament were caught on both sides of the square and there was panic for a while. They quickly began to withdraw from the square when the first strong bursts were heard and the air got stuffy from the tear gas that special police forces used to respond to the Molotov and smoke bombs thrown.
A Molotov bomb set on fire a car in front of King George Hotel. There was strong police presence in the streets around the square and along the main shopping street Ermou and the people who participated in the protest hurried to get out of there. Those known "unknown" continued to burn and break restaurants and shops all along the Panepistimiou boulevard and the clashes with the police gradually amassed in the area around the Polytechnic. There is unrest in Thessaloniki too with detainees.
According to the British Sky TV, a group of anarchists attacked the former minister of transport of the right New Democracy’s government Kostis Hatzigakis. The angry leftists were screaming: "Thieves! You are guilty for everything". Bullies tried to fight the former minister physically and managed to hurt his nose. Passersby surrounded him and protected him from the vandals.
Each union’s members were behind its poster. "It is very important who you are going to strike with and where you are standing during the demonstration because whether you will be beaten depends on this," joked one of the protesters at the beginning of the demonstration. The bloc of anarchists that cause the clashes during large demonstrations is at the rear or they make their way among the protesters and start the outrage.
The trade union of the Communist Party of Greece together with party trade unions took part in the rally which started from Omonia Square to the Parliament at 11.00 am. Their demonstrators walked past the Syntagma Square and turned to Syngrou Blvd with the slogan "You pass class laws and we will respond with class struggle". Rows of young people hand in hand and with flags of the communist trade union PAME surrounded the rows of demonstrators not to allow them go to the Parliament and not to stay at the square long.
Shortly after PAME’s protesters passed and the first slogans of the trade unions showed anarchists rushed among the protesters and threw smoke bombs at the square to the Parliament heralding the subsequent events.
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