New Greek Prime Minister visits war memorial for those murdered by Nazis

The leader of Greece’s left-wing anti-bailout Syriza party has laid flowers at a World War Two memorial in Athens as his first act after being sworn in as Prime Minister. Alexis Tsipras was formally appointed Greece’s youngest prime minister at a ceremony in the capital on Monday. Footage has emerged of the 40-year-old laying red roses at the National Resistance Memorial in the Athens suburb of Kaisariani. The site, a former rifle range, was where the Nazis executed 200 Greek communist resistance fighters on May 1, 1944.

Greece leaves behind catastrophic austerity, it leaves behind fear and authoritarianism, it leaves behind five years of humiliation and anguish.

Greece PM Alexis Tsipras

Tsipras was elected on Sunday and has agreed to form a governing coalition with the right-wing Nationalist Independent Greeks party after his party fell just two seats short of an outright majority in the Greek parliament. The unusual pairing of parties from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but with a shared drive to reverse painful austerity measures, raises the prospect of a stand-off with European creditors. In his victory speech Mr Tsipras​ vowed Greece would abandon the “catastrophic austerity” measures imposed under the EU-IMF deal.

World Greece