This is perfect occasion for the governing 'Socialists' and 'liberals' to push police state measures in advance. There has been discussion of a general permit to police to use rubber bullets. More alarmingly, as a bizarre 'solution' to the police 'mistakes' of last year that non-protesters were beaten up and arrested too, passers-by have been 'warned' in advance that they are subject to police action.

It's interesting that this is exactly the atmosphere and the rumors (rubber bullets, no bystanders etc)  that are circulating in Greece as the (massive) student protests over proposed university reform continue for the third month (actually for 9 months on and off). There has been a frightening display of police brutality, probably unprecedented in scale since the days of the dictatorship, against what is only on the surface an education-related uprising and has many of the characteristics of a youth-revolt (yes, I know, I should have posted a diary about this). Today was the big demonstration day everyone was afraid of, but Mr. Putin's presence here for the signing of a big pipeline deal, might have discouraged large scale police violence...

Here, of course, it's the (beyond-the-socialists) Left that's marching with the demonstrators and seems to support the protests ideologically (but only up to a a point).

I wonder if harsh police-state measures are part of some sort of paneuropean understanding as to how social unrest should be dealt with, or simply a case of an unorganized convergence of repressive measures, given the general economic path we're all heading along on...

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake