On the 28th of February 2023, two trains collided at Tempi, leading to the death of 57—mostly young—people. Emotions ran high. “Call me when you get there,” a familiar phrase of parents or loved ones when someone goes on a trip, sometimes good heartedly mocked by the young as a sign of “worrying too much,” suddenly became too grim. Big strikes and protests followed, denouncing a crime caused by privatization and neglect.
When New Democracy, the ruling right-wing party led by Kyriakos Mitsokatis, won the elections of June 2023 and remained in power, arrogant government executives rushed to proclaim that “nobody cares about Tempi anymore, we won 41 percent.”
For the next couple of years, the families of the victims led a determined multifaceted campaign for justice. It was revealed beyond any doubt that the government had organized a cover-up, both for the reasons that led to the tragic incident (blaming a “human mistake” by a single worker who was on the shift the night of the collision) and for the existence of a cargo that was illegally transporting a flammable material (possibly related to fuel smuggling—a profitable enterprise for many “decent” Greek capitalists) which caused a huge explosion during the collision. In January 2025, recordings of the night of the tragedy were leaked. The cry of one young woman, moments before her tragic death, “I am running out of oxygen!” went viral.
On the 26th of January, under this slogan, the families of the victims called for rallies—and the response was massive, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to streets in dozens of cities and towns all over Greece. It turned out that everyone still cares about Tempi. But the slogan helped express a general feeling. Hundreds of thousands of people, suffocating from austerity, authoritarianism, and oppression, can identify with the cry “I am running out of oxygen!” which echoes the impact of George Floyd’s cry “I can’t breathe!”
The rallies were massive but silent. On the 28th of February, on the anniversary of the crime, the victims’ families call for rallies was combined by the unions’ call for a general strike and the organizing efforts of the political Left, with local events and rallies to prepare the ground for a major day of action, not silent, but militant. The first article is a lively report of the general strike that will go down in history as one of the biggest protest actions in Greek history. The second one discusses the political impact of this amazing day. After February 28th, there has already been further action, with protests (not even close to the amazing flood of 02.28 but still massive) happening on March 5th and again on March 7th.
— Panos Petrou
An unprecedented flood of people crushed Mitsotakis’ narrative!
By Nikolas Kolytas
Government officials used to believe that they were done with having to face massive social mobilizations from bellow. That their power is secure, and they have free reign to say whatever they want without any consequence. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for us, they were proven wrong on February 28th.
This date has now become imprinted in collective memory. Not as a day of silent mourning anymore, but as a day of loud fightback. The events of the last day of February are unprecedented, with more than a million people protesting all over Greece while tens of thousands protested all over the world. It is clear that the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis has lost legitimacy.
The numbers—both of the rallies and of the people who attended—are overwhelming. There were over 260 different calls to action in cities, towns and villages all over Greece. The spectacular rallies in the major cities of Athens, Thessaloniki, Patra, Volos and Iraklion were able to strike fear in the heart of the ruling party. But the political earthquake was supplemented by the rallies in the periphery. From the northernmost edge of the country in Evros to the southernmost island of Crete, banners and signs that demand justice were raised in every city, town or small village. Workers unions, university student unions, high-school student collectives, local associations took to the streets in every corner of the country. The market was shut down, stores were locked with notes on their doors informing the audience that they are not operating in a display of support to the families of the victims of Tempi. Everyone—from kids with their parents to elders with their walking canes—clogged the streets and squares of the country, making the demand for justice universal in every sense of the word.
At the same time, similar images were seen abroad. There were mobilizations over the globe, from Tokyo to New York and from Buenos Aires to the Icelandic town of Akureyri. Over 120 rallies took place abroad. All over Europe, students, workers and children of Greek immigrants protested either at central squares or outside Greek Embassies, “shaming our country in front of the eyes of the world” as the saying goes from those who were afraid of such protests, like government officials, reactionary TV pundits and certain far-right politicians. In mainstream media of global reach, like CNN, BBC, Reuters and The Guardian, the mobilizations in Greece for the crime that happened at Tempi two years ago was a top story. Meanwhile, the high-profile and notoriously hard-right government officials that had spent the past few days provoking the people and shamelessly slandering the families of the victims went silent and buried themselves in a hole.
All of us who attended those rallies, we shall not forget that day. It was a breakthrough during a period of political weakness for the Left and relatively low levels of struggle. The people returned to the streets en masse, with an unprecedented unanimous will. In Athens, the Police estimate of about 170,000 protesters was a joke, as the rally spread to all major roads connecting various regions of Athens to Syntagma Square and spilled over many surrounding minor streets, local squares and alleys. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the number of people who showed up—at various points throughout the whole day—in Athens was almost one million.
If you tried to move around, it could take almost an hour to make a distance that is usually a 6- or 7-minute walk. Such was the density of the crowd, reflecting its determination to approach Syntagma Square. But we were so many that most of us could never reach it. The Authorities issued a prohibition against flying drones that day (!), but certain drone-camera operators raised them to the sky and provided us with magnificent pictures. And yet, even the most macroscopic images, taken from high in the sky and covering a wide area, could not record the entire crowd.
The place was filled with dozens of large banners, brought by unions, university students and political groups. Kids were carrying cardboards with the word “Justice” written on them. Parents carried home-made signs blaming the government for the crime. Citizens yelled for Mitsotakis to resign. Combined, this crowd generated a dynamic spirit that was different from the silent one that prevailed during the previous major rallies on January 26th.
This time around, the people were not only standing in compassion with the relatives of the victims, they were also actively protesting against the criminal government and its effort to cover-up the crime. There were attempts to depoliticize a rally that confronted a profoundly political crime, but they ultimately failed. Dozens of Palestinian flags, feminist banners, antifascist chants, signs against the racist crime at Pylos [where hundreds of refugees were drowned by the Greek Coastguard in 2023] accompanied the basic demands of the rally. It was not by accident that present in the rally, to support the families of the victims at Tempi, were Magda Fyssa [mother of antifascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, murdered by Nazi thugs in 2013 and a symbol of the struggle against Golden Dawn] and the mother of Kyriaki Griva [a femicide victim, who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend right outside the police station where she had gone to ask for protection but was turned down]. A mosaic of solidarity, collective expression and struggle was in display outside the Greek Parliament.
That day, the economy was “dead” while the society was “back to life”. Everything was shut down, from major night clubs in the prosperous coastal regions of Attica to small shops owned by immigrants in the poorest neighborhoods of central Athens. Meanwhile, taxi drivers were voluntarily transporting protesters for free, bringing them in downtown Athens from various previously announced starting points. The transport unions decided that they would start their strike after 5 pm. Before that, they would keep the subway trains operating to enable people to reach Syntagma. The platforms of subway stations were overwhelmed, and people had to wait for 3 or 4 trains (already packed with protesters) to pass in order to be able to board on one. Even the most ruthless bosses or major multinationals were forced by social pressure to declare some sort of symbolic “support” to the families of the victims—as the percentage of workers who had already declared their intention to strike was unprecedented.
Scaremongering by government ministers, who warned about violent riots and plans to “destabilize the country”, failed spectacularly, with the people rushing to the rallies en masse without giving it a second thought. Fear has changed sides.
When “carrots” stop working, it is time for the “stick”. When the speeches from the stage were over, the Police violently attacked in order to break the crowd and cast a dark shadow over the day. Tear gas and stun grenades were thrown in the dense crowd while over 100 citizens were arrested. Journalists were injured, while the thuggish behavior of motorized police forces in surrounding alleys reminded us of past times, when the system was afraid of popular anger. Despite the thuggish aggression of the riot police, the crowd did not back down and kept returning to Syntagma Square, which by then looked like a war zone. The most scandalous instant of this provocative repression was the deployment of an armored vehicle with water cannon against peaceful protesters who were standing still, right outside the parliament building, leading even mainstream commentators to wonder—during live coverage—why such a thing should happen.
People managed to remain in Syntagma Square until 11:20 pm, the time that the two trains had crushed at Tempi 2 years ago. It was the final act of a day that definitely changed the political discussion in Greece.
It is very crucial that the 28th of February will not remain a single day when steam was released, but that it will serve as a starting point for continuous organizing and struggle. The government is with its back to the wall. It is now paying a long overdue price for a long list of crimes and ruthless neoliberal policies. The artificial image of a prosperous Greece, where the electoral score of the ruling party (41 percent) in 2023 was used as proof that Greek society has overcome “leftist pathologies of the past,” has collapsed like a house of cards.
Mitsotakis is stuck between his own contradictions. The national agency that researches air and train accidents and the safety in transports concluded its research and the findings can convince even the most loyal believer of the prime minister that he used lies for his own political survival. The findings of the agency serve as proof that austerity policies which have shrunk the workforce of the railroads, which have underestimated the safety issue, which have led to underfunding and abandonment of the infrastructure, eventually led to the bloody crime.
The champions of austerity and Hellenic Train itself [the private company that runs the trains] have their signatures under the train collision. The findings are shocking both in terms of how antiquated the railway operation has been for decades and by reaffirming that an illegal flammable material was carried in the commercial cargo train. An official finding validates beyond any doubt what the prime minister denounced as “conspiracy theories”.
The question of how to politically handle the revelations has been a constant pain in the ass for the government. Government officials go back and forth: One day ministers put a sad face and feint compassion and regret, while the other the most hard-right executives scream against those who demand justice. This is a display of panic. Meanwhile, the parliamentary opposition falls way short of what the extraordinary rallies deserve, unable to connect with the people’s anger because of its systemic policies. This political circus cannot inspire anyone.
It is of outmost importance that these social processes from below can generate politics. These social processes should engage people who seek for a political expression and revitalize the political scene by shifting it to a radical left direction. We have past experience of such a process in Greece.
“I am running out of oxygen!”. This was the final cry of one of the victims at Tempi. It has now become a slogan in every household, in every corner of the country. The society is desperately seeking to take a breath of freedom and hope, in the suffocating context of neoliberal policies and harsh repression. The radical Left has a duty to listen, to speak, to connect with the people that took to the streets en masse on February the 28th. It is our duty to pick up the thread of struggle and justice.
February 28th as a catalyst
By Maria Bolari
The 28th of February was a turning point that will undoubtedly have a political impact.
The force that was demonstrated on the streets by the working class, the youth and broader masses of people that participated in the huge rallies in all major and many minor cities in the country was really impressive. But the powerful street rallies were only the tip of the iceberg.
The 28th of February was also an important strike, which spread the action to all the workplaces. Everything was forced to “shut down”: from factories to services, from supermarkets to small stores in the neighborhoods, even major night clubs and local private tutoring schools.
This time around, the employers, their mechanisms, and all kinds of supporters of “stability”, did not dare to stand in the way of a dynamic that they sensed it would impose itself anyway.
Seeking an antidote, the government tried the methods of repression. The riot police, the tear gas, the stun grenades, the water cannons, instead of spreading fear, ended up multiplying the anger.
In this sense, the 28th of February stands as equal to other “milestones” of social resistance that had a profound political impact in the past.
Like the massive general strike and the huge rallies that defeated an attempted attack on social security in 2001, which paved the way for the inglorious end of the “modernists” reign under then prime minister Kostas Simitis [who ruled from 1996, accelerating the neoliberal mutation of PASOK, under the banner of “modernization”].
Like the major strikes and protests during the struggle against the “Memorandums” [programs of austerity, imposed during the Greek crisis] which led to the fall of the coalition government led by Samaras and Venizelos [leaders of New Democracy and PASOK] in 2015.
Of course, we don’t make these comparisons in terms of evaluating the importance or measuring the size of each event, but in order to highlight the analogy: When it grows beyond a certain level of “size”, social resistance from below becomes a political actor and one that is especially effective.
The crime at Tempi is obviously at the core of the dynamic that leads to massive working-class mobilization. It is the awareness that the privatization of the railways has resulted not only in the collapse of the railway operations, but also in a murderous disregard for the elementary safety of passengers. It is the realization that those who point their finger at us, demanding our submission to “law and order”, are vulgar hypocrites who cover up the most illegal and dangerous activities of big capitalist Groups and have the audacity to claim that—after 2 years—“it is not easy” to solve a crime that murdered 57 people.
But indignation for Tempi encapsulates a broader social experience. Privatizations have a similar dramatic impact on schools, hospitals, ports, airports etc. The inflation of prices is eroding working-class incomes, while capitalist profits break record after record and the tax revenues [regressively focused on taxing popular consumption and working-class wages while letting profits off the hook] are each year larger than what the state budget had initially anticipated. Authoritarianism and corruption have become key features of the state apparatus in all its “points of contact” with workers and the people’s needs. The peoples’ outburst in the 2-year anniversary of the crime at Tempi is a new starting point for mass resistance in order to overthrow what we could call “the model of 2011” [year of vicious austerity measures], meaning the current, contemporary wave of neoliberal anti-worker and anti-social reforms.
A key point for the day after February 28th is the demand to reverse the privatization of the railways. The demand to renationalize the Rail Company, without any compensation to FdSI [the Italian enterprise that had bought the railways] and to organize the operation of the railways under public, democratic, workers control. Raising this demand has a political dimension. After the crime, New Democracy had done everything it could to keep FdSI’s responsibilities outside the frame. SYRIZA, the party that had signed the privatization of the Rail Company, mumbled something like “renegotiating” the contract with the Italian company. PASOK suggested terminating the contract with FdSI, but it also proposed organizing a new bidding contest to find a new buyer, insisting on the politics of privatization. All these proposals are “convenient” at many levels: The ruling forces, who have authorized a colossal program of armaments and military spending, chose to invest in the railroads only 0.75 percent of the European funds that were at their disposal “to aid development”. In comparison, Bulgaria allocated 12.5 percent of these funds to the railways and Romania allocated 17.5 percent. Today, it is doubtful whether Mitsotakis will be able to save the deal with the Italians or he will be forced to break the contract with them in order to save the privatization in general.
All these proposals—and any “in between” variants that might emerge—must be swept away by working class assertiveness in support of a solution that addresses the needs of society. Which can only mean nationalization under democratic-social-workers control.
Mitsotakis emerges weakened after this round of the conflict. The process of challenging his hegemonic position had started after the European elections of 2023 (when he conceded that “our 41 percent support has ceased to exist”) but is now accelerated.
His dominance within the broad right-wing camp is questioned, with the growth of far-right currents that compete with New Democracy. These currents remain ridiculous and unreliable, but they are also extremely dangerous.
His dominance is questioned within his own party, with various “oppositions” in New Democracy vacillating between shifting to some sort of “more socially conscious neoliberalism” and taking a new Trump-style direction.
His reliability is questioned among the ranks of the ruling class: the sense that his political power is “deflating”, and he will not be able to provide a strong pillar for governmental stability, has launched the process to seek for alternative solutions.
But more than anything else, Mitostakis is now seen as a hateful and dangerous enemy by large sections of the working class and society. This sentiment was expressed with many different chants and slogans against him personally all around the country on the 28th of February. It was a major warning that we are witnessing the beginning of his end.
But this has not happened yet. And it will not happen inside the Parliament. All the parliamentary processes—the vote of no confidence, the demand for parliamentary preliminary investigation committees etc.—would have a meaning only if they served as secondary and complementary aspects of a generalized political campaign to bring down the government. But neither PASOK nor SYRIZA are up to this task. Because both Androulakis and Famelos [the party leaders] are confined by their commitment to the same policy of Mitsotakis. They are confined by their respect to the limits imposed by the agreement signed in 2018 between the domestic ruling class, the EU, the ECB and the IMF, the agreement that was misleadingly presented as an “exit from the Memorandums of Austerity”.
Mitsotakis shall fall only through his conflict with the social opposition from below. The human flood that was on display on the 28th of February will kick start a continuation of struggle. The mass struggle against crucial nods of the prime minister’s socio-economic program, is setting the terms to bring down the prime minister himself. The crucial task for the Left in the coming period is to connect this process of political crisis and instability with victories for our people, promoting struggles that relate to the major working-class needs.
About the authors: Panos Petrou, Nikolas Kolytas and Maria Bolari are members of DEA (Workers’ Left) in Greece.
