Poverty on the streets of downtown Athens. The authorities registered 20 percent more homeless in 2011.
Credit: photo: DPA

At the moment, we see only the dark face of Europe,” said Leonidas Fotinos. “They want to buy Greece cheap.”

A large, young-looking man in his early 50s, Leonidas studied economics at university and was now running a small tour business on the historic Aegean island of Milos. He could hardly have been more removed from the street protests and ideological struggles in Athens, but he had strong views on how the conflict between Greece and its foreign creditors was uprooting the lives of ordinary Greeks.

The only wealth most Greeks had was in their own family property, he explained in his poetic English. He himself had a property on the outskirts of Athens. Before the global economic crisis, it had been valued at €800,000, against which he could borrow at a bank. Now it was worth maybe […]