Military parades were held throughout Greece on Tuesday to celebrate Greece's refusal to bow to fascist Italy in 1940 when General Ioanis Metaxas issued a resounding ‘No’ (Oxi) to their request to occupy Greece.

The largest parade was held in the northern city of Thessaloniki, which also celebrates its liberation from the Ottomans in 1912 and its patron saint, St Demetrius.

President Kostis Stephanopoulos took the salute and later told reporters that the words ‘national flag, freedom, patriot’ all become sacred when they matched a person's sentiments.

Controversy surrounded some student parades also held around the nation yesterday with opposition to ‘foreign’ students being flag bearers.

The students, a Filipino boy, an Albanian girl and an Albanian boy, were the top students in their respective schools.

A small number of protesters from the political group Golden Dawn held up banners saying ‘The Greek flag is only for Greeks’, marring the parade but not daunting the students who held their heads and their flags up high.

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