The Greek government is building a line of defense against the potential spread of protests from France and other European countries to Greece, while simultaneously launching an offensive against SYRIZA’s Alexis Tsipras and parties that appear to support unrest and violent mobilizations. “Historically, a large segment of that political space invested in chaos, and I think some — as evidenced by these statements, which I hope will be isolated — continue to invest in disorder and chaos,” said government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis during a briefing with political correspondents yesterday, while drawing a clear distinction between peaceful protesters and agitators.
Mitsotakis eyes Wednesday: Building a firewall against “French-style” unrest
Since early October, the Prime Minister’s office has been closely monitoring developments in Spain and, particularly, France — where student and youth protests have erupted into widespread unrest — as well as efforts within Greece to replicate the same phenomenon domestically. It has not gone unnoticed that last week, student unions in Athens held a protest rally outside the Ministry of Finance and were subsequently planning an overnight demonstration with tents in Syntagma Square, with bad weather ultimately disrupting their plans. Tomorrow, strike actions and rallies organized by students, university students, and teachers are scheduled across multiple locations throughout the country, with high turnout expected.
“Greece has suffered greatly in the past from such mindsets and such practices, and I believe that when some of the ‘friends of troublemakers’ — or those who turned a blind eye to troublemakers, or those who were in the ‘upper and lower square’ — came to power, they solved absolutely nothing,” said Mr. Marinakis, signaling the government’s intention to call on all political parties to take a clear and unambiguous stance against any potential incidents.
Opening a front against Tsipras over “Our turn next”
Statements made by a young SYRIZA official — who was subsequently effectively defended by Alexis Tsipras — gave the government the opening it needed to sharpen its rhetoric. “Our turn next! Greece needs to step up. We’re close,” wrote Panos Lambrinidis-Stachtos, former secretary of SYRIZA’s Youth wing and current party official, in a comment on the ongoing unrest in France. Shortly after, Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis fired back: “Don’t fool yourselves — they want chaos and they’re actively pursuing it, because it’s the only environment in which they thrive. This will be decided at the upcoming elections, nothing else,” he wrote in a social media post.
“We will not allow the country to slide into chaos,” declared Konstantinos Kyranakis, Secretary of the Political Committee of New Democracy, arguing that forces — primarily on the far left — will seek to import similar scenes of tension and disorder into Greece.
Government and party officials are also highlighting the measures already implemented by the administration on issues affecting young people — including schools, housing, and the cost of living — as well as those planned for the coming months, backed by the fiscal reserves built up through economic growth and sound financial management. “When, years ago, our country was among the first to sink into social unrest — the kind we are now unfortunately seeing spread to other European countries — we left those times firmly behind us,” said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, addressing citizens in Lavrio. “And when we see these images of social unrest, we owe it to ourselves to make an explicit commitment: Greece will never go back to the era of great social turmoil, to the era of populists, to the era when some promised they could tear up memoranda ‘with one law and one article,’ to times when lies dominated public discourse. We have left all of that, my friends, firmly behind us,” the Prime Minister emphasized.
