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Maria Spassova 

Protest joined by 35 thousand people and organized by the two largest Greek unions took place in central Athens against the policy of strict financial discipline, which the socialist government of George Papandreou was forced to lead. "Society should not serve the market. The market should serve society”, “No to the destruction of Social Security”, "We are many and we're not irrelevant", "Thieves should go to jail" - these are just some of the slogans, raised by union members and many student and immigration organizations. Both unions of public and private employees represent the interests of 2.5 million people. 

Unions are protesting against the government's intention to increase direct and indirect taxes and to fight tax evasion on income, to increase the retirement age by two years, to introduce a moratorium on appointments in the public sector and sharply reduce public expenditure. They started the rally with two separate protests - on Omonia Square and Aleksandras Boulevard, which then merged in front of the Greek Parliament. The flow of people chanted anti-capitalist and anti-globalist slogans, carried posters and sang old workers’ songs. The procession was peaceful until demonstrators started throwing bottles and burning small fires at Syntagma Square in front of the Greek Parliament. At this point, police used tear gas to appease them.

We are protesting, because until last year we had 60-70 discharged colleagues. Now we have 300-400," said for GRReporter the President of the Union of Greek journalists Panos Sobolos. In addition to the journalists, the strike includes all government agencies. The courts are also closed because the lawyers and court officials are on striking. Banks are not working and hospitals take in only emergency cases. Closed are universities and schools, airplanes are not flying, trains and not moving, ships are stuck in the ports and the urban and interurban transportation is not working. 

Although opinion polls show that most Greeks support the policy of strict financial discipline of Giorgos Papandreou’s government, the country is torn by ongoing strikes. Only in recent weeks the country had to survive long protests of farmers, then it was left without gas because of strike by customs officers and even taxi drivers were on strike for a few days. This gives rise to many analysts to wonder whether the Greek society is mature enough to support the painful, but remedial economic measures.

Photo:CNN