Tents pitched for battle as nation struggles to reform

For the first time in the modern history of Greece, anti-Government protesters pitched tents outside Parliament amid growing public anger and unprecedented international concern over the country's dire finances.

As Greeks attempt to get to grips with an economic crisis that has begun to spill over their borders into the rest of Europe, the tents lined up in Sydagma Square have conjured the mood of the nation: veering, perilously, between bewilderment and despair.

"It is a simple issue of survival," said Anna Tsounara, a protester sitting in a tent lined with sleeping bags and blankets. "I am a divorced mother-of-two.

"All of us here worked in the public sector on contracts for years and now we are told the state is bankrupt by a Government that comes in and says it wants to get rid of us. Just like that. That's not fair."

Tsounara is not alone. For the generations raised on state patrimony, the prospect of such largesse running dry because of runaway public debt has come as a rude awakening.

That Greece should find itself at the centre of a financial maelstrom - amid fears of it defaulting on that debt - with unforeseen consequences for the stability of the euro-zone, is, for many, even more baffling.

Yesterday, as farmers staged a tractor blockade of the country's highways for the third week, tax officers got ready to walk off the job and civil servants prepared for a mass strike, many Greeks were asking: how could it come to this?

"People are afraid and confused," said Asimakis Palapanis, 34, who works in a kiosk at the opposite end of Sydagma Square. "They don't know what is wrong or what is right, or what to think any more."

Pavlos Tzimas, a leading political commentator, put it another way: "People are puzzled. They spent the best part of the last decade thinking, 'It's over, we made it, we're rich,' and then suddenly they're told the country's bankrupt. Like the past conservative Government, many bought into the illusion that borrowing was OK. And now they, too, are weighed down by debt."

It has been left to a socialist Pasok Government, in office barely three months, to fix an economy whose total debt exceeds €300 billion ($592.85 billion).

For Prime Minister George Papandreou, who has laid bare Greece's ills as never before - speaking openly of endemic corruption, cronyism and a culture of deceit - the answer is simple: either the Greeks mend their ways and change their scandal-plagued politics or the country sinks under a mountain of debt.

He has announced radical reforms aimed not only at a thorough clean-up of the gargantuan public sector, but at altering attitudes and traditions that have obstructed the country's progress. The reforms, it is hoped, will modernise the fabric of Greek society, as well as the way Greeks think and work.

Change will not be easy. All agree that while the key to success is political, Papandreou must walk a tightrope.

"Most Greeks have understood the severity of the situation. They have seen that the politics we have pursued these past 35 years have not solved our problems," said Gerasimos Papafloratos who runs a tourist shop in Athens' ancient city centre.

"Our country should not be in this situation. Spain and Portugal entered the EU after us and they are much better off."

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