Unlike the French riots of 2005, which were mostly led by disaffected immigrants and their descendants, the participants in these Greek riots appear to be middle-class university students. They weren’t smashing up shops in impoverished suburbs, either: These self-styled anarchists are based in a “bohemian” neighborhood of central Athens called Exarhia and at a nearby university campus whose unused buildings, according to a rather extraordinary Greek law, cannot be entered by the police. So far, the rioters have done some $1.3 billion worth of damage.
