Dramatic footage has emerged overnight of anarchists and far-leftists throwing Molotov cocktails, fireworks and projectiles at riot police in Greece's second-largest city.

In video filmed in Thessaloniki in northern Greece late on Friday (November 17), dark-clad hooded youths launch Molotov cocktails, which explode around the feet of the police, as well as fireworks and other objects in their direction.

Thousands of protesters in Thessaloniki and Athens marched on Friday to mark the anniversary of the 1973 crackdown on a student uprising against the military dictatorship that then ruled Greece.

The march is often used as a means of expressing displeasure with government policies.

Writes the filmer: "Despite extreme weather and heavy rain, hundreds of anarchists and far-left members unleash their own rain of fire against riot police using countless Molotov bombs, fireworks, stones and every object they found available."

According to reports, a motorcycle driver In Thessaloniki was taken to hospital after driving into a barricade set up by protesters.

Greece: Rain of fire and riots during 44th Polytechnic Uprising Commemoration (1973 massive demonstration of popular rejection of the Greek military junta of 1967–1974) on Friday night.

Despite extreme weather and heavy rain, hundreds of anarchists and far left members unleash their own rain of fire against riot police using countless molotov bombs, fireworks, stones and every object they found available inside the campus of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as academic asylum in Greece made it illegal for police to enter university property without the permission of rectors, guaranteed sanctuary from arrest or state brutality.

These rules benefit anarchists to barricade themselves inside and begin this type of urban warfare as the annual Polytechnic Uprising Commemoration is often used to express displeasure against various government, police forces, European, and American policies.