:27pm UK, Tuesday December 09, 2008
Greg Milam, Europe correspondent
Greece is enduring a fourth day of serious rioting triggered by the funeral of a teenage boy shot dead by police on Saturday.
Protesters throw stones at police outside parliament
Thousands of mourners clashed with police at the cemetery in Athens where the teenager was buried and there were further violent protests outside the Greek Parliament.
Officers used tear gas to break up groups of stone-throwing youths, who attacked television crews, police and shops around the cemetery.
Youngsters leaving the funeral also set rubbish bins on fire in a nearby street.
Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, whose party has a one-seat majority, held emergency talks with the president and opposition leaders to urge them to close ranks against the rioters.
The funeral for Alexandros
He described the protesters as enemies of the state and appealed to unions to cancel a protest rally during a 24-hour general strike scheduled for Wednesday.
But the opposition leader wants early elections and said the government could no longer defend the public from rioters.
"The government cannot handle this crisis and has lost the trust of the Greek people," George Papandreou said.
Violence also erupted in the port city of Patras, where the police headquarters was under siege.
About 500 people were throwing stones and Molotov cocktails. Police responded with tear gas.
Around 6,000 mourners attended the service for Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the capital, applauding as the teenager's body was carried out of church in a white coffin.
Teenager shot by police
The funeral followed a protest outside the Greek parliament where hundreds of people threw stones and bottles at the building and the police officers who tried fend them off.
The protesters, including teachers and students, held their demonstration to demand justice for Grigoropoulos.
The death of the 15-year-old has sparked days of rioting across the country, with 87 arrests made last night alone.
Police say they fired warning shots after being attacked by a crowd on the night Alexandros died. But witnesses claim an officer took deliberate aim at the boy.
Mobile phone footage, believed to show the moment the officer opened fire, has surfaced on the internet. The two officers involved have been arrested and charged.
Tim Marshall's Foreign Matters
"Riots never come out of nowhere, and especially not in Greece."
Anarchist groups who have led the rioting have been able to use university campuses to prepare and re-arm as, under Greek law, police are not allowed to enter.
Greece's second city Thessaloniki has also seen major unrest with 70 stores and seven banks set on fire.
The riots have piled pressure on the Karamanlis government already feeling the heat from economic troubles and a corruption scandal.
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