Public transport was severely disrupted, with the Athens metro not running, bus and trolley routes reduced and ferries tied up in port, severing connections between islands and the mainland.
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Trains and ships will be ground to a halt by the strike and over 30 domestic flights will have to be cancelled.
Greece was brought to a standstill Thursday by its first general strike since the anti-austerity government of Alexis Tsipras took power.
In a departure from convention, Tsipras’ far-left Syriza party urged “mass participation” in Thursday’s walkouts, saying the protests would strengthen the Greek government’s negotiating stance with its creditors, who have criticized Athens for failing to deliver on a few measures.
“This is the first general strike and the first major anti-government protest since the Syriza party’s landslide victory in last September’s snap general election, but with the pressure from the country’s lenders it is unlikely that it will be the last one”, explained euronews correspondent Stamatis Giannis in Athens.
Eurozone peers have told Greece to implement a set of outstanding overhauls under its bailout program by the end of this week, in a process that will also pave the way to complete the recapitalization of Greek banks using eurozone bailout funds.
Police fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the anti-austerity demonstrators after a few youths broke away from the protest and threw Molotov cocktails at security forces.
Three people were reportedly detained before order was restored.
The Leftist government argued that there was no choice but to continue cooperating with lenders and negotiating the terms of the disbursement of the next 3 billion euro installments in coming weeks.
But the main civil servants’ union ADEDY and the GSEE private sector union objected to proposals to scale back supplementary pensions and merge pension funds. State-run schools and local authorities remained closed for the day, as well as many museums and archeological sites.
Sources close to the continuing bailout talks says that Athens has approved just 14 of the 48 “milestone” reforms demanded by creditors in return for what is the country’s third worldwide bailout, worth US$95 billion and that its creditors are delayed the latest in a tranche of bailout payments.
(Vatican Radio) Clashes have broken out between police and protesters at a march during a general strike in Greece.
The demonstrations came at the same time that representatives of the creditors are in Athens to discuss the bailout agreement with the government.
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More than a million Greeks still lack gainful employment, according to official statistics.
