Interview

The train accident in Greece “reveals the shortcomings of the State and the failure of European policies”

In Greece, two trains collided head-on while on the same track for several kilometres, on Wednesday March 1.

AFP - SAKIS MITROLIDIS

Text by: Sylvie Noël Follow

4 mins

Five days after the deadly collision between two trains, anger has not subsided in Greece.

This Sunday, March 5, violent clashes opposed police and demonstrators in Athens, opposite the Greek Parliament, on the sidelines of a new protest rally.

Interview with Olivier Delorme, historian, novelist and author of

(Gallimard).

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RFI: Since this tragedy which occurred on the evening of February 28, which claimed the lives of 57 people, including many students, the demonstrations have multiplied.

The Greek Prime Minister has just asked for forgiveness.

Is it a gesture that can respond to the anger that is expressed

Olivier Delorme:

Yes, it's a gesture that the Greeks were waiting for, because this disaster is particularly felt throughout the country.

The victims - dead or missing - are mainly young people who were traveling between Athens and Thessaloniki, which is almost the only railway line in the country.

How to explain this anger that does not fall?

We have the impression that she goes beyond this train accident, even if it is dramatic.

This tragedy is cruelly felt because European policies have caused the birth rate to collapse a little more, which had already been low in Greece for ten years.

That children have become something very rare in Greece, that young people have left in large numbers to escape the economic and social situation in the country generated by European policies.

More than 500,000 young people have left the country and those are the best trained.

This drama also provokes such an extraordinarily strong emotion, because it reveals both the shortcomings of the Greek State, reinforced by European policies and budget cuts, as well as clientelism, since it seems that the station master has been appointed when he was neither the age nor the skills to hold the position, but under pressure from a member of parliament.

In short, for the Greeks traumatized by ten years of absolutely savage austerity policies, the conclusion is that it is a failure and it is the straw that broke the camel's back.

I doubt the prime minister's apology is enough.

So this anger is not only directed against the Greek authorities, against the railway company Hellenic Train, but also against the European Union?

The European Union has imposed the disjunction between the management of the network which does not generate any income and the lucrative transport of passengers and goods which has been privatized and sold off like the rest of the Greek public heritage to a foreign company.

For the railroad, it is an Italian company that pockets the profits, for the airports, a German company.

On the other hand, the cost of infrastructure maintenance remains the responsibility of the Greek government, and therefore of the taxpayer.

The privatization process took place in a framework of total opacity and in a context of absolutely savage austerity.

The French must understand that the minimum wage has still not reached the level of 2008, while inflation is now 16%.

The discontent is all the stronger as the debt does not

.

This accident puts the Mitsotakis government under pressure?

In reality, it is the entire political class that is considered to be jointly responsible for this state of affairs since for ten years, all the parties have succeeded each other in power: Pasok, the former socialist party, Syriza which was in power during the decision to privatize rail, the right.

The Greeks note that no government, none of the political solutions implemented have resolved the problems which today are leading to a catastrophe that is extremely difficult to accept.

Recognition that past governments, whatever their political leanings, have failed to put in place a modern rail system.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens on May 6, 2022. © Thanassis Stavrakis / AP

The Mitsotakis government, which nevertheless made a mistake when composing the commission of inquiry…

It is an extraordinarily incomprehensible clumsiness.

The government has appointed a man who was at the head of the railway company when the decision to privatize the transport was taken in 2015 and who was then the president of the authority created under European pressure to liquidate the

(Taiped).

In the face of the outcry, 24 hours after his appointment, he had to resign from the commission of inquiry.

A disaster that leads to the postponement of the legislative elections...

Everyone announced them for April 9, but it seems that they will be postponed since the emotion is such that the government does not want to go very quickly to these elections, so the elections will probably take place in May .

In the current context, this crisis can have rather unpredictable consequences, I think, and which will be long term.

You have an explosive mix today.

► To read also: After the train collision, railway workers' strike and demonstrations in Greece

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