Greeks protest soaring unemployment

(Vatican Radio) Thousands of unionized workers and newly-jobless demonstrated here in Athens yesterday protesting the soaring rate of unemployment, five years into the Greek economic crisis.

The police were expecting some violence, but almost all the protests passed off without incident. Fears that yesterday’s Mayday rallies could have been the trigger for a spring of rioting turned out to be unfounded.

Unemployment in Greece has been climbing relentlessly for five years, until now it’s the European Union’s highest at over 27 percent of the active workforce. A staggering six out of ten young working-age people between the ages of 15 and 24 are without a job, and with little hope of getting one, even at the start of the tourist season.

Making a personal appearance at the Athens rallies was Alexis Tsipras, the youthful leader of the radical left Syriza party, which in the polls is running neck with the conservative-socialist coalition government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Tsipras warned that the anger of a million and half jobless Greeks could topple the austerity measures mandated by Greece’s creditors, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.

Samaras himself has been upbeat lately, insisting that the worst of the austerity is over and that foreign investment has already started trickling back into Greece. He can also point to lack of violence in yesterday’s Mayday protests as showing that public discontent is subsiding.

But as long as Greek joblessness remains the European Union’s worst, Samaras will have to wage a constant struggle for popularity.

Listen to John Carr’s report: