Greek police fired tear gas on youths Saturday as marchers swarmed through central Athens to protest unprecedented austerity cuts needed for an EU and IMF loans worth as much as 120 billion euros.
Thousands massed in the Greek capital for traditional May Day marches to vent popular anger against deep budget cuts the government has promised in the face of a debt crisis that pushed the country to the brink of default.
Anti-riot forces used tear gas to contain several isolated clashes on the margins of the marches, which police said drew 15,000 people.
Tear gas was also fired in the northern city of Thessaloniki where about 5,000 people demonstrated, also according to police.
The protests piled fresh pressure on the government as it raced to wrap up negotiations with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to slash spending and raise taxes in return for the desperately needed loans.
Union leaders want the May Day protests to be a shot over the government's bow ahead of a May 5 nationwide general strike against budget cuts, which will hit public sector workers particularly hard.
"It's the biggest attack on workers for centuries. They want to return us to the nineteenth century," said protestor Ericos Finalis, a printer.
"This is not going to be a battle but a war that will last for months or even years."
Clashes erupted when several dozen youths, some armed with sticks, charged a line of anti-riot forces protecting the finance ministry, prompting police to respond with tear gas.
But at the same time a second group also set fire to fire to a van belonging to the public television with a molotov cocktail.
Police also fired tear gas when a group of anarchists got close to the entrance of a luxury hotel on Athens' central Syntagma square.
In the northern city of Thessaloniki, police also fired tear gas at youths attacking banks and businesses during a May Day protest using iron bars to smash up to cash machines and several store windows.
"In the next months there will be many demonstrations, nobody knows what really is going to happen. But people know that there is no other way than to come down into the streets and protest," said protestor Marina Yotis.
The IMF and the EU have asked for Greece to slice off by next year 10 percentage points from a public deficit that reached 13.6 percent of output in 2009, according to a top union official on Thursday.
In Paris, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the rescue package for Greece was expected tp total 100 and 120 billion euros (133 and 160 billion dollars).
President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed during a telephone conversation Saturday to act quickly to unlock a rescue package for Greece, the French presidency said.
"The president and the chancellor fully share the same view and reaffirmed their determination to act quickly to implement the support plan," said an Elysee statement.
Two polls showed Greeks to be divided between anger and resignation towards the shock therapy the EU and IMF are demanding in exchange for loans needed to keep the government from defaulting on past debt.
Nearly 80 percent of those questioned were against cuts in private sector wages but 50.6 percent considered that a lifeline from the EU and IMF was necessary, according to a survey of 1,256 people.
The same poll, conducted for the To Vima pro-government newspaper, found that 62 percent of Greeks are against protests unions have organised in recent months in response to the austerity drive.
However, another survey found that 51.3 percent of Greeks were ready to march against the cuts, based on a poll of 1,000 people by the Alco institute for newspaper Proto Thema.
With the government not due to outline the measures until Sunday, union officials who have spoken to Prime Minister George Papandreou have said the IMF and EU are demanding wage cuts, lower pension benefits and higher taxes.
They said the EU and IMF were demanding spending cuts of 25 billion euros in the next two years on top of sacrifices already made.
The government aimed to conclude the talks on Saturday in order to be able to announce the details of what was agreed on Sunday morning ahead of a meeting of eurozone finance ministers in the afternoon in Brussels, a source said.
NWO News
