Greece Braces for General Strike After Four Days of Protests

Greece Braces for General Strike After Four Days of Protests


Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Greece braced for a general strike today, while demonstrators are set to take to the streets for a fifth day to protest the fatal police shooting of a 15-year-old.

The strike, called to protest government economic policies, will shut schools and government offices and disrupt public transport. Air-traffic controllers will walk off the job, halting flights by carriers Aegean Airways SA and Olympic Airways SA. Labor groups representing 2.5 million workers plan to rally early today in Athens.

George Papandreou, leader of the opposition Panhellenic Socialist Movement, called for early elections yesterday, as police used tear gas to disperse stone-throwing protesters outside parliament. It was the fourth day of unrest after the Dec. 6 shooting in Athens of the student, whose funeral yesterday was attended by about 6,000 people, the Associated Press said.

“The country doesn’t have a government which can protect the citizen, their rights, their security,” Papandreou said yesterday after meeting with Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis. “Our society, our citizens are living through multiple crises: economic, social, institutional, of values. The government has lost the confidence of the Greek people.”

The country’s biggest labor groups -- GSEE, which represents about 2 million workers, and civil-service union ADEDY, with 500,000 members -- rebuffed a call by the prime minister to cancel rallies in Athens to prevent more clashes. The unions comprise about half the Greek workforce.

‘Raw Violence’

The ruling New Democracy government has 151 of parliament’s 300 seats and is fighting declining voter popularity. Pledges that it will show no leniency to those responsible for the boy’s death have failed to stem the violent protests.

“No one has the right to use this tragic event as an alibi for acts of raw violence,” Karamanlis, the 52-year-old nephew of a former prime minister, told reporters in Athens yesterday after meeting President Karolos Papoulias. He reiterated that there would be “no clemency” for the perpetrators.

Papoulias called for calm yesterday as the teenager, Alexis Grigoropoulos, was laid to rest. Grigoropoulos was killed after a group of about 30 youths hurling projectiles attacked a patrol car in the Exarhia district of Athens, according to the Interior Ministry.

Police surrounded the parliament building in the center of Athens yesterday, pushing back against thousands of teachers and students trying to break a cordon, Antenna TV showed.

Protests Spread

As calm eventually returned to the city center, Skai TV showed scenes of police chasing protesters throwing rocks in the streets of Nea Smyrni, a southern suburb of the capital, after the boy’s funeral. Disturbances were also reported in Thessaloniki, the second-biggest city.

Police in Athens fired tear gas and dragged away protesters two nights ago as demonstrators torched stores, banks and hotel lobbies in the worst violence in decades. Two-hundred stores and 50 banks were damaged or destroyed in Athens, AP said.

The officer who fired the fatal Dec. 6 shots was charged with murder and illegal use of a weapon while his colleague will be charged with being an accomplice to the killing, state- controlled Athens News Agency reported.

“The state will do what it can to prevent a repeat of this tragedy,” said Karamanlis, who has been in office since March 2004. “Those responsible will receive the punishment they deserve.”

Youths Rampage

Protests began shortly after the fatal shooting, when about 1,000 youths rampaged through central Athens, burning and attacking banks, stores and cars. The riots spread to cities including Thessaloniki and the island of Crete.

Rioting continued into yesterday and police said 87 people were arrested in Athens for attacking officers, vandalism and looting. A total of 176 people were detained while 12 police were injured, police said.

The fire service has responded to more than 200 blazes in central Athens, about half of them in buildings and the remainder in cars and garbage bins used as barricades, AP said.

The popularity of the New Democracy party has slid since the government announced new tax measures in September, while the global financial crisis prevents it from providing relief to lower-income groups.

Polls since September show Papandreou’s opposition party leading New Democracy for the first time in eight years. Papandreou, 56, is the son of Andreas Papandreou, a former prime minister.

Karamanlis introduced new taxes on dividends, stock options, self-employed workers and small businesses to boost revenue as slowing growth and higher inflation and interest rates hamper the government’s ability to meet budget targets.

Greek economic growth will slow to 2.7 percent next year, from a previous forecast of 3 percent, according to the government’s final budget plan for 2009, submitted to parliament last month. Greece is also being buffeted by a recession in Germany, the euro region’s largest economy.

BLOOMBERG