More than two weeks after a train disaster that killed 57 people, Greece was largely paralyzed on Thursday by a general strike fueled by unbridled anger, especially among young people. After a large 40,000-strong rally in Athens on March 8, other demonstrations are planned across the country, writes AFP.

At the call of trade unions in the public sector and, for the first time, in the private sector, tens of thousands of people have been forced to take to the streets again, with the risk of renewed violence between certain demonstrators and the police.

Greece should be largely paralyzed, especially transport. All ships connecting the mainland with the islands will remain at the pier. Air traffic will be seriously disrupted, planes of the national company Aegean Airlines will remain on the ground.

Railway traffic is planned to gradually resume after March 22, the Minister of Transport noted.

Many schools will also be closed, and students at the forefront of this wave of protests not seen since the financial crisis also plan to protest.

In Athens, one of the rallies is expected around noon on Syntagma Square, on the esplanade in front of the Parliament.

After a head-on collision between a passenger train connecting Athens with Thessaloniki (north) and a freight convoy on the evening of February 28, Greeks took to the streets en masse to express their anger and distrust of the conservative-led government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis. .

At the “peak” of the protest on March 8, about 65,000 people took to the streets of Greece.

In addition to the train disaster that shook the country, Greeks are fed up with the deterioration of public services in a country that has been hit by years of crisis and austerity plans imposed by its creditors.

Because if the train accident in Tempe in the middle of the country was caused by a station master’s error, it was also caused by the deteriorating condition of the rail network and long delays in upgrades, especially signaling, according to the former. elements of the investigation.

Greeks demand accountability from their leaders, accused of negligence. Demonstrations again called for the resignation of the government as general elections loom in the summer.

After the disaster, the prime minister tried to respond to the indignation of the population, which largely lost trust in institutions after the crisis of 2008-2018.

He promised “full transparency” in the ongoing investigation and repeatedly apologized to the victims’ families.

This anger movement is particularly strong among young people and students, as many of the victims were students returning to Thessaloniki, a major university city, after a long weekend.

They march, chanting “Murderers” and carrying placards reading “Call me when you come,” a mother’s message to her child that has become the protest’s slogan.

Many young people feel they have been victimized by the austerity measures of the crisis years.

Unemployment among young people aged 20-24 remains at a high level – 27.6% in the third quarter of 2022.

In the demonstrations, “the slogans are not new. Greece is eating its children,” the liberal daily Kathimerini said in an editorial on Sunday.

“But the age of this wave of protests… is clear. The bankrupt generation and students, students and youth marked by the pandemic prevail.”

Referring to these “angry” young people, the left-wing newspaper Efsyn drew more or less the same conclusion on Sunday: “they are stunned by the economic bankruptcy” of Greece, victims of the “violence of a system that destroys their dreams” and reduces their rights.