More than 100,000 workers demonstrated in Athens outside the parliament yesterday to protest the PASOK government’s latest austerity measures. The protest was held on the second day of a 48-hour general strike by millions of workers.

The leaders of the two main trade union federations, the GSEE and Adedy, arrived in Syntagma Square in the morning and left only minutes later.

Before the official start of the protest, several thousand members of the Stalinist Communist Party of Greece (KKE) affiliated trade union, the All Workers Militant Front (PAME), established themselves in the square as a self-proclaimed security force to “defend the public” from what they termed as provocateurs and “anarcho-fascists.” The PAME members, armed with baseball bats and carrying motorcycle helmets, lined up in front of the massed riot police in several lines, as a second rank protecting the parliament building.

More than 100,000 workers demonstrated in Athens outside the parliament yesterday to protest the PASOK government’s latest austerity measures. The protest was held on the second day of a 48-hour general strike by millions of workers.

The leaders of the two main trade union federations, the GSEE and Adedy, arrived in Syntagma Square in the morning and left only minutes later.

Before the official start of the protest, several thousand members of the Stalinist Communist Party of Greece (KKE) affiliated trade union, the All Workers Militant Front (PAME), established themselves in the square as a self-proclaimed security force to “defend the public” from what they termed as provocateurs and “anarcho-fascists.” The PAME members, armed with baseball bats and carrying motorcycle helmets, lined up in front of the massed riot police in several lines, as a second rank protecting the parliament building.