Fears of renewed rioting in Greece, calls for early elections

Students ignored an official return to classes after 48 hours off for a general strike and a day of mourning and protests in Athens, a police source said.

"The tension has dropped compared to Monday and Tuesday, but we still face a broad array of challenges and it is difficult to predict how things will evolve over the coming hours," a police spokesman, Panayotis Stathis, told AFP.

"We are preparing for a variety of protesters rallies later this afternoon, especially around the universities," he added.

Over 100 schools and universities remain occupied by youth demonstrators, with student groups having announced a major rally for Friday.

"We are still at the top end of the curve in terms of this movement (in Athens), fortunately around the country, things are quieter," Stathis added.

Greece is confronted with the worst riots since the reinstitution of democracy in 1974, with fresh overnight skirmishes marking a sixth day of violence in protest at the death of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos.

An Athens, a police officer was charged Wednesday with voluntary homicide -- which under Greek law does not necessarily involve premeditation, but does indicate a realization that death could result from your actions, a legal source specified.

Many people were angry that the 37-year-old policeman charged with murdering the teenager did not express remorse to investigators on Wednesday. He said he fired warning shots in self-defense which ricocheted to kill the youth.

Epaminondas Korkoneas and his partner, who is charged as an accomplice, were sent to jail pending trial by a prosecutor on Wednesday. Cases in Greece often take months to reach court.

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Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, who has announced financial support for hundreds of businesses damaged in the rioting, was due to travel to Brussels for an EU summit on Thursday, as the government tried to carry on business as usual.

 

Marchers clashed with police outside parliament following a rally against economic and social policy. "Government murderers!" demonstrators shouted as Karamanlis and opposition leader George Papandreou appealed for an end to the violence.

 

Greeks also protested in Paris, Berlin, London, Rome, The Hague, Moscow, New York, Italy and Cyprus.

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"ELECTIONS IN THREE MONTHS"

While the government, which has a one-seat majority in parliament, appeared to have weathered the immediate storm, its hands-off response to the rioting has damaged its already low popularity ratings, analysts said. The opposition socialist party, which leads in the polls, has called for an election.

 

"The most likely scenario now is that Karamanlis will call elections in two or three months' time," Georges Prevelakis, professor of geo-politics at Sorbonne University in Paris, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

 

On Wednesday, foreign and domestic flights were grounded, banks and schools were shut, and hospitals ran on emergency services as hundreds of thousands of Greeks walked off the job.

 

In a televised message, Karamanlis, who swept to power amid the euphoria of the 2004 Athens Olympics, announced subsidies, loans and tax relief measures for those affected, reminiscent of his government's response to the 2007 forest fires, which killed 65 people.

 

In four years of conservative rule, a series of scandals, devastating forest fires, and unsuccessful economic measures have erased the optimistic mood of 2004.