GREECE: Police fire tear gas and stun grenades at hooded protesters wielding stones in front of the Greek Parliament as German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras

Record ID: 321693

  • Title: GREECE: Police fire tear gas and stun grenades at hooded protesters wielding stones in front of the Greek Parliament as German Chancellor Angela Merkel meets with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras
  • Date: 10th October 2012
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (OCTOBER 9, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF HOODED YOUTHS THROWING STONES AT RIOT POLICE STANDING IN FRONT OF BARRICADE MORE OF HOODED YOUTHS THROWING STONES AT RIOT POLICE HOODED YOUTH THROWING STONES AT RIOT POLICE THEN RUNNING AWAY RIOT POLICE OFFICER RUNNING AS STONES ARE THROWN AT HIM HOODED AND MASKED YOUTHS THROWING STONES AT RIOT POLICE STONES AND
  • Embargoed: 25th October 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5F6USIXBFSAX1FCI34PK6J65H
  • Story Text: Protesters broke off pieces of marble from the sidewalks of Athens' central Syntagma Square on Tuesday (October 9) and volleyed them at riot police who responded with tear gas, stun grenades and pepper spray, dispersing the crowds of workers, students, and union members who had turned out to protest against the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
    Police detained 217 protesters and arrested 24 as angry crowds chanted anti-austerity slogans and pinned a placard outside parliament depicting Angela Merkel in clown paint.
    Some 6,000 police officers were deployed for the six-hour visit, including anti-terrorist units and rooftop snipers. German sites in the Greek capital, including the embassy and Goethe Institute, were under special protection.
    Merkel's visit marks a gesture of support for the ruling coalition under Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, a fellow conservative, as he struggles to impose more cuts on a society fraying at the edges after five years of crippling recession, and after a litany of stalled reforms under the previous administrations.
    It also underscores Merkel's commitment to keep Greece in the euro zone - at least until Germans vote in a parliamentary election due in a year.
    Greece is locked in talks with the troika - inspectors of the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - on yet more cuts to secure the next tranche of a 130-billion-euro loan package, its second bailout since 2010. Without the 31.5-billion-euro tranche, Greece says it will run out of money by the end of November. The cuts, estimated at nearly 12 billion euros, are expected to include wage and pension reductions - the third since the austerity program began in 2010 - tax increases, and cuts to defence and health spending.
    Many Greeks say they cannot take more cuts and that cuts have reduced their standard of living, caused job losses which raised unemployment to 24 percent, and deepened the five year recession.
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