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Greece-related riots spread in Europe
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-12 10:17

People walk past burned cars following five days of riots in central Athens, December 11, 2008. Students occupying an Athens university clashed with police on Thursday and vowed more protests in coming days, while many Greeks wondered where the worst riots in decades would leave their government. [Agencies]

The Barcelona daily La Vanguardia said the protests had been convened over the Internet.

Daniel Lostao, president of the state-financed Youth Council, an umbrella organization of Spanish youth groups, said young people in Spain face daunting challenges - soaring unemployment, low salaries and difficulty in leaving the family nest because of expensive housing.

Still, he said he doubted the protests in Spain would grow.

"We do not have the feeling that this is going to spread," Lostao said. "Let's hope I am not wrong."

In France, protesters set fire to two cars and a garbage can apparently stuffed with flammable material outside the Greek consulate in Bordeaux early Thursday and scrawled graffiti on the building threatening more unrest, Michel Corfias, the Greek consul, told The Associated Press.

"It was a very, very intense fire," Corfias said, adding that it severely damaged the building's front door.

Graffiti sprayed on the consulate's garage door read "solidarity with the fires in Greece, the insurrection to come," he said, and the word "insurrection" was painted on the doors of neighboring houses.

Corfias said police suspect the attack is linked to events in Greece, and that it might have been carried out by youths unhappy with globalization and economic difficulties in France.

"The events in Greece are a pretext, in my opinion," he said. "The events in Greece are a trigger."

Elsewhere in Europe, more than 15 people occupied a Greek consulate in Berlin on Monday, hanging a banner out the window with the dead Greek teenager's name and the words, "Killed by the State." Youths clad in black appeared occasionally at a consulate balcony, exchanging chants with more than 50 protesters gathered on the street below.

About 100 people protested outside the Greek consulate in Frankfurt on Tuesday evening and minor violence was reported on the peripheries of the demonstration, including the breaking of a bank's window.