ALEXIS TSIPRAS (pictured above), Greece’s radical left-wing leader, has taken a bold step. Since his Syriza party became the official parliamentary opposition at last June’s election, the 38-year-old political firebrand has sounded a touch less critical of the country’s creditors. At a meeting in Berlin on January 14th with Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, he politely presented a list of requests, ranging from debt forgiveness of the kind extended to post-war Germany and less austerity for suffering Greeks to recognition of war debts claimed by Athens against its Nazi occupiers in 1941-44.

Mr Schäuble was unimpressed, insisting that Greece must continue to implement reforms, however tough, if it wants to stay a member of the euro zone. He said that all of the country’s political parties should back them. Yet the meeting lasted longer than the 30-minute slot Mr Tsipras had been allocated. “We broke the ice”, said one aide. The Syriza leader’s next trip later in January will be to Washington, DC; his ambition for 2013 is to establish himself as a mainstream European politician.

To do so, Mr Tsipras must persuade Syriza’s far-left faction to go along with the plan. For the first time since the elections, opinion polls show the party trailing the centre-right New Democracy (ND), though by less than two percentage points. Pollsters said the ND-led coalition government’s success in winning disbursement of a long-delayed €31.5 billion (€42 billion) aid tranche caused the turnaround. “Syriza has invested in disaster…If things go better for Greece, their popularity is bound to decline,” said one analyst.

While Mr Tsipras was away from Athens a dozen home-made bombs exploded outside bank branches, local offices of ND, and the homes of several Athens journalists. A hooded man armed with a Kalashnikov sprayed bullets into the ND headquarters in the early hours of January 14th. One landed in the former office of the party leader Antonis Samaras, now ensconced in the prime minister’s mansion. Meanwhile, police continued a campaign to expel scores of leftwing squatters from derelict houses in the city centre, a move that some observers believe could have triggered the extremists’ response.