Greek riots: Why violence and revolt have rocked the cradle of democracy

To millions of British holidaymakers it is a summer playground of sun, sea and ancient treasures, but a week of fierce rioting and violent street battles has uncovered a far darker side to Greece.

By Nick Squires in Athens
Published: 5:58PM GMT 13 Dec 2008

The explosion of rage that has engulfed the country over a police officer's fatal shooting of a 15-year-old schoolboy could not be further from its tourist brochure image of shady tavernas, quaint fishing villages and sparkling Aegean bays.

Athens – the cradle of Western civilisation – has been turned into a war zone, its streets jammed with the burnt-out wrecks of cars and its pavements blackened by soot and liquid oozing from melted rubbish bins.

In the most serious crisis since the end of the military junta in the early 1970s, shops and restaurants had their windows stoved in and their interiors set on fire as police in full riot gear squared up to hundreds of hooded protesters.

The teenager's death was the catalyst, not the cause, of the protests which have shaken Greece to its very core. It tapped into deep-rooted anger over decades of police brutality and government corruption as well as fears for Greece's economic future.

"The whole country is going through a nervous breakdown," said Alexis Papachelas, editor-in-chief of the conservative Kathimerini newspaper.

"Greece is in self-destruct mode. A whole range of problems have accumulated over the years and have now reached a critical point."

The response of the embattled conservative government was judged by 68 per cent of Greeks as woefully inadequate in a poll last week.

Fearful of more deaths or injuries, the prime minister Costas Karamanlis instructed police to assume a defensive role – responding to direct attacks but otherwise allowing the rioters to burn and loot at will.

It appears to have been a huge miscalculation, encouraging night after night of violence and prolonging the crisis.

Mr Karamanlis's New Democracy Party was elected on a wave of euphoria in 2004, after 20 years of rule by the Socialist Party, Pasok.

But since then the government has been damaged by corruption scandals, the mishandling of wildfires in which more than 60 people died and the unpopularity of its economic reforms.

A lawyer by training who had no ministerial experience before being elected to office, Mr Karamanlis squeaked back into office at elections last year, but with a parliamentary majority of just one. His position has never looked more precarious.

For seven consecutive nights, with the spectacularly lit Parthenon looming over the city from the craggy plateau of the Acropolis, gangs of masked youths have thrown petrol bombs and stones, set up flaming barricades and taunted the police.

The winter sunshine struggled to penetrate the acrid haze of smoking refuse and tear gas which hung over the worst-hit parts of the city.

Burned and besieged over two millennia by Persians, Spartans, Romans and Turks, this time it was the Greeks themselves who set about destroying the capital.

The violence spread like a virus to nearly a dozen other cities, from Thessaloniki in the north to the islands of Rhodes, Crete and Corfu in the south, familiar to generations of British package tourists.

The spark that ignited the tinder box that is modern Greece was the fatal shooting of Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police officer last Saturday.

He was one of 30 youths who allegedly attacked police with bottles and stones, shouting "Cops, we're going to burn you alive", according to the officer's statement.

Epaminondas Korkoneas, 37, said he fired two or three warning shots, one of which ricocheted and struck the boy in the chest.

That version of events was corroborated, his lawyer said last week, by a preliminary post mortem report which showed that the bullet entered at an angle that could not have come from a direct shot.

The claim was met with anger and cynicism by most Greeks, who have grown weary of policemen killing in cold-blood and then getting off scot-free. The report has yet to be released officially, further fuelling suspicion of a cover-up.

"Everybody knows this is a big lie," said taxi driver Spiros Papadopolos with disgust. "But this is how things are in Greece. For sure, the policeman won't be jailed. It has happened many times before."

Greeks are being squeezed by high unemployment, low wages, the rising cost of living and public debt which is almost equal to the country's national output, in part a legacy of the 2004 Athens Olympics.

The games were a public relations success and gave Athens a shiny new metro system and new roads and sports stadia, but they left a bill of more than 10 billion euros (£9 billion).

A much-needed economic reform package, including privatisation and a shake-up of the pension system, has made life hard for many Greeks. An estimated 20 per cent of the population of 11 million already lives below the poverty line.

"Obviously there was emotional outrage at the boy's death but it's bigger than that," said political analyst and pollster Anthony Livanios.

"In Greece we talk about the 700-euro-a-month generation – they're very well educated, they have university degrees, and yet they have huge problems finding jobs. When they do they're paid 700 euros a month or less. Many people are forced to work two or three jobs."

The epicentre of the protests in Athens has been the district of Exarchia, where the teenager was shot dead last weekend.

A few blocks away protesters crouch around fires in the debris-strewn forecourt of Athens Polytechnic, which has a long tradition of resistance to the authorities.

In 1973 the Greek military junta sent tanks into the campus to crush a student revolt. At least 20 students were killed, although the exact death toll has never been established. A year later the junta, which had ruled with an iron fist since 1967, was ousted and democracy returned to Greece.

Dimitris, 24, agreed to talk through the bars of the front gate but like all the protesters refused to give his full name.

He had a deep cut to his forehead – the result, he said, of a policeman hurling a chunk of rock which had previously been thrown at police lines by demonstrators. The rest of his face was hidden by a hood, scarf and dark glasses.

"Our number one demand is that the police should be disarmed of their guns. I think this is how they operate in England, no? So that the shooting of kids like Alex will never happen again."

There were nods of agreement. "They say Greece is the founder of democracy but the system we have now does not function," another young man said.

Unlike in Britain, where youths hurling Molotov cocktails at police are condemned as thugs and hooligans, the protesters in Greece enjoy a huge amount of public sympathy and support, particularly among the middle class.

"Greece has the characteristics of a failed state. These 15-year-olds are articulating what all classes are feeling," said John Olympios, a British-educated public affairs consultant. "Everybody feels disenfranchised. Greece just isn't working at the moment."

The depth of disillusionment goes way beyond party politics. Greeks are as fed up with the opposition Socialists as they are with the government.

"We've realised lately that the two main political parties can't deliver," said Mr Papachelas.

"The political class in Greece is bankrupt, they can't manage the state. We need a new political generation, we need technocrats."

But as the global recession bites deeper, there are fears that things will only get worse – and not only for Greece.

There have already been sympathy protests in cities across Europe, from Madrid to Moscow, Barcelona to Bordeaux.

Greece may now be the sick man of Europe, but the anti-government protests crippling the country could be contagious.