Hero of the Greek Resistance against the Nazis, the man who took down the Swastika from Acropolis during the German occupation, three times sentenced to death for his political ideas, historic leader of the Greek Left and of SYRIZA until July 2015, Manolis Glezos was invited by President Macron to the speech he delivered in Pnyx, the birthplace of Democracy.
Manolis Glezos declined the invitation and send the following letter to the French President:
«The Greek people always welcome France, its people, the struggles of its people and its representatives.
I will always remember the enormous contribution of the official French authority headed by General De Gaulle and the French People to the cancelling of the death penalty imposed on us by the post-civil war Greek regime.
But today’s visit (to Greece) bears a significant difference. Today, the strong are asserting themselves.
The powerless government of Greece is welcoming a cynical economic invasion by the French President’s entourage. Those infrastructures that have not yet been allocated are to be sold off.
We are not selling, we are giving up.
They are not investing: they are increasing their own wealth by squeezing every last drop of blood from the Greek people
Simple balancing, simple mathematics.
And all this under the rubric of an unprecedented history of blackmail, with the extortionist’s sword on the table, accompanied by the cynical Vae Victis. (note: “woe to the vanquished”, or “woe to the conquered” in Latin).
Nothing will change our appreciation for the French people. We will not, however, accept what will be agreed between the business groups accompanying the President of the French Republic and the Prime Minister of Greece.
For these reasons, I do not accept today’s invitation to attend to Pnyx’s desecration today.»
