Greek Prime Minster George Papandreou headed to Paris on Sunday, the third stop of a four-city tour seeking firmer European Union and US support for harsh austerity measures that have sparked violent protests at home. Athens is adamant that it has done all it can with the new measures to reduce its massive 12.7 percent budget deficit. It is now seeking concrete actions from European partners to calm markets and bring down the country's high borrowing costs, which are about twice that of Germany's. Papandreou, who visited Luxembourg and Berlin on Friday, is likely to find a sympathetic ear in his meeting Sunday evening with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He then flies to Washington for talks with President Barack Obama on Tuesday. Papandreou's Socialist party came to power in October and shocked Europe by quickly revising the government's budget deficit to 12.7 percent of gross domestic product for 2009 from below 4 percent earlier that year. “The situation we inherited was worse than our worst nightmare,” Papandreou said in a statement. Sarkozy, for his part, said Greece's euro-zone partners could not abandon it because doing so would defeat the very purpose of the 16-nation common currency project. “If we created the euro, we cannot abandon a euro-zone country – otherwise it wasn't worth it to create the euro,” Sarkozy said at a Paris agricultural fair Saturday. “That's why I'm supporting Greece.” French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who is also expected to attend the Papandreou-Sarkozy meeting along with her Greek counterpart, George Papaconstantinou, says the talks will focus on how Greece's new austerity plan will be enacted. She said Sarkozy would back Greece if its debt woes got it into real trouble _ but gave no details of the potential emergency support. Sarkozy is seen as far more sympathetic to Greece's problems than German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom Papandreou met on Friday. Merkel praised the latest Greek austerity measures, which cut civil servants' pay, froze pensions and hiked a range of taxes, including those on sales, fuel, cigarettes and alcohol. She also pledged political support for Greece _ but without any concrete details. Both Merkel and Papandreou stressed that Greece is not looking for financial aid from its European partners. Athens has not asked, Merkel said, and none was being offered. What Greece does want, however, is some form of support that would reduce its sky-high borrowing costs on the international market. It insists it is the victim of speculators who are pushing up the price at which it can borrow. Papandreou has one big card to play, saying unless his new austerity plan receives the full backing of markets and its European partners, he could be forced to seek help from the International Monetary Fund. That is something Sarkozy is strongly against because the IMF is run by a political rival of his, Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Greece's new austerity plan, approved by Parliament on Friday, has already sparked strikes and violent demonstrations. Protesters clashed with riot police in central Athens and a new general strike has been called for Thursday, on top of another planned for March 16. Despite the violence, Greeks appear to be ambivalent about the measures, favoring those that hit other people. A survey in Greek newspaper To Vima showed nearly 48 percent oppose the austerity plan and about 47 percent support it.
