S
Shingen Takeda
Guest
Protesters clash with police on streets of Athens
The former Greek transport minister was stoned by protesters as hundreds took to the streets and clashed with Athens police during an anti-austerity march.
12:04PM GMT 15 Dec 2010
A police officer's leg is engulfed in flames as a petrol bomb explodes during a protest in Athens.
About 200 leftist protesters chased Kostis Hatzidakis as he left parliament, shouting: "Thieves! Shame on you!" They threw stones and beat him with sticks, until he took flight into a nearby building.
Striking Greek workers grounded flights, shut down schools and paralysed public transport on Wednesday as protests against austerity measures to dig Greece out of a debt crisis culminated in a nationwide walkout.
Greek police fired tear gas at protesters who threw petrol bombs at two luxury hotels in the central Syntagma square outside parliament, setting the balcony of one hotel on fire.
Dozens of protesters threw several fire bombs, also setting a car on fire. Police returned with several rounds of tear gas, filling the square with smoke.
With a comfortable parliamentary majority, and future bailout instalments at stake, the ruling socialists are unlikely to reverse course.
The 300-seat house voted into law measures that cut wages in state-owned bus and railway companies and weakened the power of collective bargaining to allow company-level deals to prevail.
Before the protests escalated, Ilias Iliopoulos, general secretary at the civil servants' union ADEDY, said: "We need to send the government a message that we will not accept measures that lead us only to poverty and unemployment.
"... We are warning of more action after the holidays. We will not yield, we will prevail." Ships remained docked at ports, hospitals were working on skeleton staff and ministries shut down as civil servants and private sector workers stayed away.
With public transport crippled, major roads to the centre of Athens looked like huge parking lots as motorists struggled to get to work. With journalists joining the strike, there was no news on TV or radio stations. Workers were also due to rally against austerity in other countries on Wednesday, including Spain and Belgium, ahead of a summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
