More than 10,000 students, pupils, teachers, and employees took to the streets of Athens and other Greek cities on Wednesday, protesting against the rising cost of living and highlighting similarities to the situation in France, according to police and local media reports.
A police spokesperson told AFP that around five thousand people gathered at noon in the Greek capital, while another three thousand gathered in Thessaloniki, the country’s second-largest city.
Additionally, state television "ERT" reported that more than three thousand people participated in a march in the city of Patras in the west of the country.
Maria, a fifty-year-old employee at a municipality near Athens, told AFP during her participation in a march heading to Syntagma Square across from Parliament, "The level of education is very low (...) the schools are suffering from a lack of staff and the school buildings are dilapidated."
High school students and teachers are protesting the lack of infrastructure and staff, demanding an increase in public spending on the education sector.
According to the Secondary Teachers' Union, there is a shortage of 15,000 teachers in schools.
Katya Kouposido, representing philosophy and education students at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, told AFP, "Whether in Greece or France, we demand public and free education."
In Athens, student Giannis Papanikolaou expressed his happiness about "the protests in France," adding, "It helps us work for change here." He continued that "the windows (in some classrooms) are broken and the heating systems don’t work."
In Thessaloniki, the major student city, banners were raised reading "Greece and France, revolution everywhere, the same problems and the same enemy," and "From Greece to France, we fight for public and free education."
Kouposido added, "We have a plan to continue our protests" because "the cost of studying has become unbearable," noting that "the cost of living is draining our parents daily."
Despite the minimum wage being raised in Greece since the financial crisis, its net value does not exceed 920 euros.
Dozens of students pitched tents on Tuesday evening in Athens and Thessaloniki.
For Philippos Armin, a physics student at the University of Thessaloniki, "many European countries are suffering the same problems," at a time when Albania, Greece's neighbor, is also experiencing protests.
For its part, the public sector union "ADEDY" joined the student protests after announcing a work stoppage in the morning.
The public sector union praised "the massive demonstrations of the people and youth in France," presenting a series of demands, including "wage increases" and "providing vital support for teachers."
During the Athens march, 17-year-old Nikos Mavrodies explained that "parts of the ceiling have collapsed in the bathrooms" at his school located in downtown Athens.
Recently, a fourteen-year-old student was injured after part of a classroom ceiling fell on him in Thermi, near Thessaloniki.
In Athens, a major high school also closed its doors after a warning of a gas leak.
According to Eurostat, Greece allocated 3.3% of its GDP to education in 2023, compared to an average of 4.7% in the European Union.
In recent days, the Greek conservative government has sought to avoid any comparisons with the demonstrations and violence occurring in France.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis confirmed on Monday that Greece will "never return to an era of major social unrest" that the country experienced during the financial crisis from 2009 to 2018, characterized by unpopular austerity measures that severely harmed the population and led to protests and violence.
In September, Greece had one of the highest inflation rates in the Eurozone, recording 5.1 percent year-on-year, compared to an average of 3.8 percent in the region, according to "Eurostat."