Protests cause chaos in Athens; injure two policemen in Thessaloniki
Traffic ground to a halt and public transportation schedules were thrown into chaos in Athens on Saturday as three separate demonstrations converged around Parliament on Syntagma Square in the city center.
The Syntagma metro station was closed at 9.30 a.m. as part of security measures imposed by police, who were out in the streets in force on Saturday.
Two of the protests started at 11 and 11.30 a.m. and the third, by pensioners, at 12 noon.
The earliest of these was organized by anti-fascist groups and the third by locals inspired by France's yellow vest movement.
In Thessaloniki, meanwhile, police remanded 49 people in custody over clashes during two rallies – one organized by protesters opposed to the name deal with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the other by anarchists – in which two officers sustained minor injuries.
The rallies were held to coincide with a visit to the northern port city by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
