3.95 euros to laugh at the crisis in Portugal

It is just one example of how to begin to take the bad economic situation any employer (in this case trade) in Portugal.

Protest songs, TV commercials ... everything goes to satirise the crisis in the country Luso.

Political ridiculed, Merkel, Sarkozy and the 'troika' have featured in the carnival this week.

The harsh austerity measures implemented in Portugal in return for foreign aid are increasingly answered by its citizens, who now boast of irony to show their rejection.

The image of the country remains far from that of Greece , where the harshness of the cuts has led to violent confrontations between police and protesters, although the tone of the protests has also grown in Portugal as the situation worsened.

Receiving a tip they call salary (...) I want tighten the belt and pants and I have Luso more sarcastic side came out in the carnivals of the week ending, which has become for the first time shape the 'troika' of lending institutions to rescue Portugal, EU, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Caricatures of Merkel and Sarkozy riding a Europe aimlessly, spokesmen for the 'troika' with the scepter of command in hand, and several local politicians ridiculed, were just some of the carnival references to a crisis that has put the country in recession and with unemployment historically high: 14%.

But the signs that show this tendency to sarcasm are more numerous.

The protest songs with humor, the resurgence of the satirical character Zé Povinho and the finger (either directed to the new labor reform or the rating agency Moody's) or TV ads that make fun of the unfortunate statements its politicians, reflect how the Portuguese answer to one of the worst moments in recent history.

Neither has been left out of this current one restaurant , which compelled by circumstances to offer lower prices launched the 'Menu Merkel', the 'Menu Sarkozy' or even 'Menu IMF', from 3.95 euros.

"So many years studying to finish unemployed, or a bad job and underpaid. Receive a tip they call salary (...) I want to tighten the belt or pants I have , "he sings Boss AC , a Portuguese rapper of Cape Verdean origin in a video that takes more than a million hits on YouTube in two months.

Your letter shows the impact of multiple and severe adjustments in the average citizen, who already pay more than before by the state health , for using public transport or buy a car.

"That side of irony used in the protests in Portugal is an interesting, corrosive, and already in the past was very visible," explains Elisio Pond, sociologist and professor at Coimbra University who has studied the relationship between social differences and conflict. The "resignation" that sometimes seems to mark the character of the Portuguese is derived, according to Pond, Salazar's dictatorship, as in other historical periods there were riots radical and violent episodes.

So pacifism linked the protests to the success of the Revolution of April 25, 1974, which led the country to democracy? "It is true that the answer is different from that of Greece, where the agitation seems more chaotic, also by the increased presence of radical ideologies. Society Lusa shows, like other peoples, a great capacity for acceptance and sacrifice , and do not choose violence easily. But when it reaches its maximum limit, the answer may be unexpected, "says the sociologist.

In fact, in the faces of those involved in the protests appears to reflect growing outrage, an idea supported by recent statistics: only 56% of Portuguese believe that democracy is the best of the schemes and only 10% say they trust in parties and unions .