2015-11-12 08:32:00

Anti-austerity strike paralyses Greece


(Vatican Radio) Public services all over Greece staged a general strike today in the first serious anti-austerity protest since the leftwing government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was re-elected nearly two months ago.

John Carr reports from Athens

Public transport, hospital, school, bank and other public-sector workers walked off their jobs to protest the continuing austerity measures demanded by Greece’s creditors, including clipping pensions and foreclosing on homeowners in debt.  Journalists have joined the strike, so there’s a 24-hour news blackout as well.

The strike comes at a bad moment for Tsipras, who’s battling to get Greece’s banks refloated by fresh bailout funds and can’t afford to give in to the unions’ demands.  And officials from Greece’s creditors are here in Athens this week to assess the progress of painful reforms.

Seven weeks into Tsipras’s fresh mandate to govern, today’s general strike shows that his traditional bulwark, the unions, are not going to make life easy for him.

 

   








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