ATHENS (Dispatches) -- Greek police fired tear gas Thursday as a thousands-strong demonstration in Athens against new austerity cuts turned violent with some hooded youths throwing Molotov cocktails.
Police said more than 10,000 people took part in the protest outside parliament in the heart of the Greek capital just as the chamber was set to debate the new pension cuts and lower tax breaks -- applicable in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
The parliament is set to pass the bill in a vote expected around midnight which Athens hopes will help it gain a pledge of debt relief and loan disbursements by the country's EU-IMF creditors this month.
Live television images showed hooded youngsters lobbing firebombs at the police in the central Syntagma Square and throwing projectiles.
On Wednesday, at least 18,000 people demonstrated in Athens and the second city Thessaloniki in union-sponsored protests against the bill.
Athens hopes that the disbursement of 7 billion euros from existing bailout loans will be approved by a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on May 22.
More pension cuts and tax hikes are on the way in Greece, after the country’s parliament approved a new round of austerity.
Tensions are high over the fresh austerity, the latest since Greece plunged into crisis seven years ago.
"When a lawyer gets 100,000 euros, his net income (after taxes pension contributions) is only 20,000 euros,” said lawyer Dimitris Petropoulos.
"From those 20,000 euros he has to invest in his job, in order to get the 100,000. Now in Greece there is no lawyer who gets 100.000 euros per year. You can understand the reality for poor people.”
Shop owner Sissi Boukouvala added: "My income has reduced by 80%. I can’t pay anything. My debts are increasing. We don’t have an income anymore and they raise taxes. I don’t know what will happen from now on. I don’t have hope in anyone, neither SYRIZA or New Democracy.”
Greece has already received about 260 billion euros in bailout aid, in return for reforms and deep spending cuts.