Most often it is those that live close to the sea, where tourists arrive in the summer, who oppose the project. Those that live in the hills where there is little work generally support it.
“These jobs mean that the barber and the doctor will have work too,” said Kostas Karagiannis, who has been working clearing the forest. “It is not just the miners who benefit.”
In the last year, opponents of the projects, many of them retirees, have staged more than a half-dozen demonstrations. The villagers say that at one particularly large demonstration at the end of October, when 21 villagers were arrested, the police used brutal tactics.
Rania Ververidis, 62, said that she had been ordered out of her car and told to kneel. At that point, she said, a police officer had stomped on her ankle. She was still limping three weeks later, she said.
But she said she intended to protest more. She fears that Greece is in the process “of selling everything.”
“We can’t let that happen without doing anything,” she said.