Greeks should stop lobbying for more debt relief, Germany’s Finance Minister said on a visit to Athens on Thursday that forced a lockdown of the city centre and a ban on protests against the deeply unpopular champion of austerity.

Wolfgang Schaeuble’s motorcade drove through empty streets cordoned off by thousands of riot policemen and devoid of any protesters. It was his first trip to Greece since its debt problems kindled the eurozone crisis four years ago.

Unlike during German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit last October when thousands defied a similar ban on protests, there were virtually no demonstrators to greet Schaeuble apart from a group of about eight women who shouted “Nazi, Nazi” and “Raus!” (out!) outside the finance ministry.

“He (Schaeuble) is a jerk,” said Marina Papachristou, 60, an unemployed grandmother of two. “He has come here to check on his colony. Get out!”

Athens played up the symbolic visit as a show of support for Greece by one of its biggest creditors, although critics disparaged it as a public relations effort by Berlin before Merkel faces re-election in September.

Schaeuble arrived hours after Greece’s parliament passed a scheme to fire thousands of public sector workers, and he duly praised Athens for its reform efforts.

But he also bluntly told Greeks to stop asking for a second debt writedown following a restructuring last year that imposed massive losses on private holders of Greek bonds.

He said more help could be discussed next year if Athens met targets. “I would like to ask all of you not to continue at this time this discussion on a new haircut,” he said at an event with Greek businessmen. “It is not in your interest.”

Official lenders like the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund now hold more than 90 per cent of Greece’s debt. That means the burden of any further debt relief – which Athens hopes will ensue once it hits its financial targets this year – will fall on eurozone states tired of Greece’s seemingly endless funding needs and poor record on reforms.

Germany in recent weeks has repeatedly ruled out a writedown of Greek debt, although critics believe the government is simply trying to hold off discussion on it until its election.

Athens has avoided bankruptcy so far thanks only to over €240 billion in aid from the “troika” of IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission. The EU justice commissioner called this week for the troika to be dissolved, though other senior eurozone officials have since defended it.

In a gesture of goodwill towards Greece, Schaeuble signed a deal offering €100 million for a fund to help pull the country out of a recession that is now in its sixth year.

That has failed to impress Greeks, who blame Germany’s insistence on fiscal rigour for record unemployment of 27 per cent and plummeting living standards that have driven up suicides and stoked near-daily protests and strikes.