March 9, 2011
It started in Aphidnai, a small town north of Athens. Local residents, angry at losing their exemption from paying tolls for using a 500m stretch of motorway, raised a banner saying “Den Plirono” (“I won’t pay”).
In the space of four months, Den Plirono has grown from a one-off protest to a nationwide anti-austerity movement.
Growing opposition to reform is unnerving markets and alarming Greece’s eurozone partners, whose leaders meet in Brussels on Friday.
“We’re a popular, not a political movement, taking a pro-active approach to the worst crisis in Greece since world war two,” said Konstantinos Dimitriades, a 30-year-old mini-market supplier and one of the founders of Den Plirono.
The movement’s supporters refuse to pay highway tolls. In Athens they ride buses and the metro without tickets to protest against an “unfair” 40 per cent increase in fares.
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