Thursday 12 March 2026, by Andreas Sartzekis
Three years after the Tembi train disaster, anger has not subsided in Greece.
Between international solidarity, youth mobilization and mass demonstrations against the Mitsotakis government, hundreds of thousands of people reaffirmed their demand for justice and denounced the policies of privatization and austerity.
A week of mobilization
This week, the streets of Greece were filled with solidarity.
On Wednesday the 25th February, at the call of the Association of Ukrainian Women in Greece—working women who send their meagre savings back home—a procession of 500 to 800 people marched to denounce "Putin, fascist, murderer, give us back our children!" The only presence of the Greek labour movement was a few libertarian flags and some comrades from ENSU Greece…
Thursday: Demonstration by school-aged youth demanding justice for the 57 victims of the Tèmbi train tragedy (February 2023), in which many students died.
Friday: warm-up in front of the Athens court before the verdict in the appeal trial of the killers of the Nazi group Golden Dawn - Chryssi Avgi (March 4).
And on Saturday 28 February hundreds of thousands of demonstrators across Greece denounced the Mitsotakis government’s continued cover-up of responsibility for Tembi . Three years after the tragedy, the scale of the mobilizations proves how much "justice for Tembi " remains a source of anger, mass unity, and awareness.
Unity and radicalism to win
Once again, it was the committee of victims’ parents that called for the demonstration, demonstrating their commitment to moving forward in unity. In Athens, there were at least 100,000 demonstrators , including many young people and numerous unions—it should be noted that this year again, many shops closed in solidarity.
Of course, the speeches focused on the demand for justice—the trial opens on March 23—with a refusal to place the blame on middle managers, stationmasters, or railway workers. It is indeed the policies of this ultraliberal government that are at issue, with the privatization of the trains but also, as the secretary of the railway workers’ union reminded everyone, with the European framework that imposes the lowest common denominator in terms of safety for ever-increasing profits.
"Either their profits or our lives": the slogan is everywhere - there has been much talk about the five female workers killed in the recent explosion at the Violanta factory - and it translates, in the face of the stagnation in which the government maintains the railway network, into the shared demand for public transport services, with, as the group of 6 (Anametrissi, DEA etc.) says, expropriation without compensation of the Italian private group and the necessity of workers’ control.
In Trikala, the town where the Violanta factory was located, the cry of hundreds of protesters shows the way: "We do not forget, we do not forgive."
Athens, 28 February 2026
Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.
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