Violence between police and protesters erupted again in Greece on Wednesday as anger spreads over the train disaster that left 57 people dead, with some now calling for the government to resign.
More than 65,000 people shouted their indignation across Greece during another day of protest marked by an almost general strike in the public and private sectors.
In front of the parliament in Athens, Molotov cocktails and stones were thrown by angry demonstrators after a rally of more than 40,000 people, including many young people, AFP journalists noted.
Police responded with tear gas and stun grenades in Syntagma Square, the esplanade below Parliament.
Clashes also took place in Thessaloniki, the country’s second city, where some 15,000 people shouted their anger.
Greece is in the grip of a wave of indignation unprecedented since the financial crisis of 2008-2018 with demonstrations, increasingly violent, which follow one another since the frontal collision between a passenger train and a convoy of goods on February 28 .
This “national tragedy”, as the authorities called it, was caused by mistakes made by the station master.
But the dilapidated state-owned rail network and serious shortcomings in the security system have been singled out to explain this tragedy.
“This government must go”
In the Athenian procession flourished placards calling for the resignation of the government of conservative Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose management of this accident is considered calamitous.
“This government must leave,” assures Niki Siouta, a 54-year-old civil engineer, met by AFP in one of the demonstrations in the capital.
“I am here to pay tribute to the dead but also to express my anger and my frustration,” she adds.
“It’s not an accident, it’s politics”, also proclaims a leaflet from the Athens Students’ Union while young people chant “Assassins, assassins”.
“It is this same government which does not give money for education and for hospitals”, was also indignant Thanassis Oikonomou, a union representative of the Athens bus company.
Many Greeks are expressing bitterness at what they see as a decline in public services since the austerity plans imposed by Greece’s creditors to pull the country out of the doldrums.
Public health, education and transport have suffered major blows over the past ten years.
” Water drop “
This rail collision is “the straw that broke the camel’s back”, summarizes another protester, Spyridoula Togia, 30, a college professor. “The country is doing badly,” adds Giota Tavoulari, 58, from the pharmacists’ union. “Policies that put profits above the safety of citizens can’t last.”
In Athens, where the parades have followed one another for a week, banners also indicated: “Call me when you arrive”.
This slogan, which refers to the message that Greek parents usually send to their children, has spread in rallies and schoolyards. Many victims of this accident were young people and students.
Greece is also almost at a standstill. No maritime connection is ensured between the mainland and the islands and the trains remained in station for the eighth day in a row.
Public service employees also walked out for 24 hours, as did primary school teachers, doctors and bus and metro drivers, joined in processions by students.
Without any alert being triggered, two trains, one passenger, the other freight, traveled for several kilometers on the same track before colliding head-on, in Tempé, near the town of Larissa, in 350 km north of the capital.
Since then, the Greeks have held their leaders to account.
The head of government, who faces general elections in the spring, is crushed to have a few hours after the disaster assured that it was “a tragic human error”.
However, the railway unions recalled with anger that they had sounded the alarm on the serious technical failures on this line long before the tragedy, without having been heard.
While promising compensation to the families of the victims, Transport Minister Giorgos Gerepetridis admitted that the accident could have been avoided if the installation of the “global remote management system had been completed”.
Contrite, the Prime Minister asked forgiveness on Sunday from the families of the victims, a mea culpa considered very late for many.