ATHENS - RIOTING youths attacked the French Institute in Athens with firebombs on Friday as Greek police braced for more protests a day after extensive clashes between demonstrators and riot police.
Some windows of the French Institute, a cultural and language learning center, were smashed but the interior was not seriously damaged in the attack by about 20 youths, police said. A nearby bank ATM was also damaged. No injuries were reported.
'Spark in Athens. Fire in Paris. Insurrection is coming,' read one slogan spray-painted onto the building's walls in French.
Another, written in Greek, read 'France, Greece, uprising everywhere'.
Athens has seen near daily hit-and-run attacks by youths throwing firebombs in the past two weeks, after the fatal police shooting of a 15-year-old sparked the worst riots Greece has seen in decades.
The rage unleashed by the Dec. 6 shooting has lifted the lid on years of dissatisfaction over social inequality, poor employment prospects for young people, and increasing anger with the conservative government's economic policies.
Greece's two largest umbrella trade union organisations planned to rally outside Parliament later on Friday to protest the government's 2009 budget, which lawmakers began debating late on Wednesday.
University professors also planned a rally outside Parliament.
Separately, students planned a mass concert in central Athens in support of the 'uprising of youth' and against 'state repression'.
The rallies and concert come a day after a demonstration against police brutality by about 7,000 students and teachers turned violent, sending Christmas shoppers and panicked families fleeing to safety.
Around 200 youths wearing masks hurled petrol bombs and chunks of marble hammered from surrounding buildings in central Athens at riot police, who responded with stun grenades and repeated volleys of acrid tear gas.
Mothers snatched children from a carousel in the main square.
Waiters stumbled from cafes, choking on the tear gas, and rioters tried to burn the capital's Christmas tree, just days after it replaced another tree that was torched in the initial riots.
Athens police said eight people were arrested during Thursday's violence. Over 300 have been arrested so far.
After two weeks of unrelenting rioting set off by the killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos, a slogan spray-painted outside the Bank of Greece summed up the mood: 'Merry crisis and a happy new fear.'
The two policemen involved in the teenager's shooting have been jailed pending trial. One has been charged with murder and the other as an accomplice. -- AP
