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By Michael Winfrey Renee Matezou
June 18, 2011 10:28 AM EDT
Thousands of Greeks marched on parliament on Saturday in a show of unabated public anger after Prime Minister George Papandreou reshuffled his cabinet and vowed to push on with a belt-tightening campaign.
In a move meant to stifle dissent in his Socialist Party, Papandreou on Friday dismissed former Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou, author of a new five-year austerity program that has sparked weeks of protests.
The reshuffle coincided with a pledge by France and Germany to continue funding Athens, a move that may have bought Greece and its fellow euro zone members time to prevent a messy default, even if doubts over its longer-term solvency persist.
The European Union and International Monetary Fund have made the reforms a condition for a new bailout package worth an estimated 120 billion euros ($170 billion) that Greece, shut out of capital markets, will need to fund itself through 2014.
Around 5,000 protesters from the Communist group PAME marched into Athens' central Syntagma square -- where demonstrations turned violent earlier this week -- chanting "the measures are killing us!"
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French activists also performed with a three-meter puppet depicting a bloodied figure of Lady Justice to rhythmic drumming in a gesture of solidarity with Greek protesters who have camped in the square for three weeks.
"What has changed with the reshuffle? Nothing," said Costas, a 22-year-old student who has been camping on the square since the beginning of the month. "We are not planning to leave unless they take back the measures."
RESHUFFLE MIGHT WEAKEN REFORMS
Papandreou appeared to curb a revolt in his party by including some of the austerity package's harshest critics in the new administration, but that might also weaken the reforms.
He named political heavyweight Evangelos Venizelos, his biggest party rival, as finance minister.
Shortly after his nomination, Venizelos said he would travel to Brussels on Sunday to ask lenders to allow some "improvements ... for social justice" in the reform package.
On the same day, euro zone finance ministers are expected to agree to release a 12 billion euro tranche of an existing, year-old bailout loan that Greece needs to pay back debt maturing in July and August and avoid default.
"They've bought themselves time until September," said Howard Wheeldon, strategist at BCG Capital Partners in London.
"Germany and France are the main countries involved here, and neither of them are going to let the euro fail, and they're not going to let Greece fail."
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