Yiannis Baboulias

Greece is erupting in anger after its train disaster

(Photo: Getty)

‘Message me when you get there.’ This phrase became a rallying cry when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Greece this week, in protests sparked by the country’s deadliest train disaster which killed 57 people earlier this month. Anger against the government was palpable, with protesters shouting ‘murderers’ outside the parliament building in Athens, forcing PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis to postpone his plans to announce the date of the next elections.  

To understand why this particular incident threatens to upend the ruling party’s certainties, we must unpack the phrase used by the protestors. It’s hard to understate the emotional resonance of that simple line for Greek people. My own phone is full of messages like that, sent by my mother whenever I’m travelling. They don’t even stop when you’re in your mid-thirties and live abroad. The phones of the 57 victims, most of them university students travelling from Athens to Thessaloniki in the north of the country, would have also been full of these messages.  

This isn’t just about the young age of the victims; there’s a sense that this train wreck symbolises the country’s situation after more than a decade of austerity under incompetent governments. And it’s this sense that is driving the anger against a whole class of politicians who seem unwilling to change course and stop the terminal decline that the country has been in since the 2010 debt crisis, leaving its young people with no prospects at best, or tragic victims of its failures at worst. 

Rail workers from OSE (Greece’s network operators) are now on strike, highlighting issues that were known about the rail industry but remained unaddressed for years: extreme understaffing, irresponsible practices and crumbling infrastructure.  

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in