Greek shoppers flee as protesters clash with police

RIOT police clashed with rock-throwing demonstrators in central Athens yesterday, sending Christmas shoppers and people in cafes running for cover.

Frightened parents scooped up their children from a Christmas carousel in the city’s main square and fled.

The protesters broke away from a peaceful rally and hurled rocks and firebombs at police and buildings near parliament, overturned a car and set fire to bins. They also splashed police with red paint.

Police responded with tear gas and flash grenades. Firefighters and police also rushed to stop protesters from burning down the city’s main Christmas tree, which was just replaced earlier this week after the first was torched in riots.

Families abandoned the carousel in downtown Syntagma Square after children had happily used rides all morning.

Yesterday’s clashes were the latest outbreak of violence after the police’s fatal shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos on December 6.

Hundreds of businesses have been smashed, burned or looted and gangs of youths fought running battles with riot police firing tear gas every night for a week. The riots have been fed by dissatisfaction with Greece’s increasingly unpopular conservative government.

More than 200 youths set fire to a private security van and set up a burning barricade after smashing a cafe storefront and setting fire to its furniture.

Before the violence broke out, some 7,000 students and other protesters marched in a rally, chanting “We are the law, we’ll stay on the streets.” As they passed, fearful shop owners shuttered their store fronts. Some demonstrators painted white crime-scene-style body outlines on the streets.