Greek protest over cuts ends in violence

The violence lasted about 30 minutes yesterday when scores of youths hurled rocks, paint and plastic bottles near parliament and officers responded by firing tear gas.

Windows were smashed at the Finance Ministry which has been accused by the European Union of slipshod statistics-keeping that made the financial crisis worse.

The day's protests were otherwise peaceful. Unions organised the march amid a 24-hour general strike that grounded flights, shut schools and crippled public services, in a show of strength against the government.

The walkout comes as Greece is considering tougher austerity measures to ward off a financial crisis that has undermined the euro and raised fears that financial market contagion will spread to other weak economies such as Portugal, Spain and Italy.

The European Union has issued a vague promise to support Greece, which has 53bn of debts coming due this year, but the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou has pressed for more specific guarantees to shore up market confidence. The government says it will not need a bail-out.

There was disruption elsewhere in Europe by workers unsettled by the threat to their jobs from the slow economy and government plans to cut back. In France, a strike by air traffic controllers disrupted flights for a second day.

And in Spain, tens of thousands of demonstrators yesterday rallied in several cities to protest over a government proposal to raise the retirement age by two years to 67.