Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Greek students scuffled with police in Athens on the seventh straight day of protests over the police killing of a teenager.

Tear gas was fired at youths hurling gasoline bombs and stones during a march through the city center, state-run NET television showed. A police spokesman said there were scuffles when officers tried to detain a protester.

There were no major incidents, he said. The clashes occurred during two marches by students and teachers which caused gridlock on main roads leading into Athens.

Greece has been wracked by violence since the Dec. 6 shooting of Alexis Grigoropoulos, 15, whose funeral three days later prompted battles between police and protesters. The violence shook Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis’s pro-business New Democracy party, which has a slender parliamentary majority and is already battling unpopular economic measures.

Karamanlis dismissed reports he would resign or call early elections.

“The country right now has a government and a strong government,” he said in Brussels at a news conference televised by NET. “Strength isn’t measured by the parliamentary majority which is truly thin but stable.”

New Democracy has 151 of parliament’s 300 seats and is fighting declining voter popularity over new taxes and a series of scandals. Pledges that it will show no leniency to police responsible for the teenager’s death failed to stem the protests.

Election Call

Opposition leader George Papandreou has called for early elections. His Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or Pasok, is leading opinion polls for the first time in eight years.

The government on Dec. 10 said it would provide aid for businesses damaged by the unrest. The Athens Chamber of Commerce said in a statement posted on its Web site yesterday that 435 businesses had been damaged up to Dec. 10. Of those, 37 were destroyed.

Damage to businesses and lost sales in the country’s two biggest cities may come to more than 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion), the newspaper Kathimerini reported. Economy Minister George Alogoskoufis has said it is still too early to estimate the cost of the damage.

Grigoropoulos was shot when about 30 youths attacked a police patrol car in the Exarhia district of Athens. Rioters rampaged through cities around the country after his death, burning cars, stores and banks for three straight nights.

One police office has been charged with the youth’s murder and another with being an accomplice.

To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Petrakis in Athens at mpetrakis@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: December 12, 2008 10:46 EST