Thousands of people took to the streets of Greece’s main cities Wednesday during a nationwide strike in protest at a new round of austerity cuts being introduced in return for vital EU-IMF loans. Over 30,000 people demonstrated in Athens and Thessaloniki as the general strike — the first since the new government took office in June — snarled flights, halted train services and ferries and shut down the public sector, including museums. The action brought together civil servants and other workers, students and pensioners who have all been hit by previous rounds of cutbacks in the debt-laden eurozone country. “We are here to fight for our future,” Anastasia Teloni, a 20-year-old law student protesting in Athens, told AFP. “Unless something big happens, it will be difficult for me to find work and have a respectable life.” The protesters marched past shuttered stores which had been boarded up for fear of violence that frequently breaks out at Greek demonstrations. “For the past two-to-three years we’ve been living an incredible social catastrophe,” said Ilias Loizos, a 56-year-old municipal worker. “My salary has been cut by 50 percent. I have two children and tomorrow I don’t know if I’ll have a job,” he said. It is the third general strike this year but the first to test the resolve of the coalition government that took office in June to keep recession-hit Greece in the eurozone as it rushes to finalise a package of some 11.5 billion euros ($15 billion) in extra cuts.
