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ATHENS (Reuters) - In a sea of colorful balloons, thousands of Greeks marked Pride on Saturday, celebrating diversity and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.

More than 10,000 people assembled in Athens’s Syntagma Square, normally a regular venue of rage for protesters over financial reforms for the indebted country. But on Saturday it was a vista of rainbow flags, dancing and loud pumping music.

“For us, Pride is a source of celebration but simultaneously protest,” said participant Yiorgos Kounanis, a political scientist. “We seek the same rights as heterosexuals, we pay the same taxes, have the same obligations and (therefore) demand equal rights,” he said.