HAD THEY even been up early yesterday morning to hear him, few Greeks would have shared their tired prime minister’s optimism that a “new day has dawned” for them in Brussels, where he and his euro zone colleagues earlier struck a deal to offer a new bailout programme worth over €100 billion and to convince banks to erase billions of euro in Greek debt.

As they awoke and flicked on their televisions and went online, they found journalists busy trying to reconstruct the “thriller night” of negotiations that led to the deal, which will impose a nominal 50 per cent haircut on the state’s debt mountain.

While the media repeated government assurances that bank deposits and pension funds were safe under the deal, there was little in terms of analysis of what this would mean for ordinary citizens.

“Greeks are viewing developments with a great deal of trepidation and confusion,” said Athens University economist Yanis Varoufakis. “They want it to be a solution, but deep down they know it is not.”

While the debt write-down came as no surprise, the announcement that a new bailout memorandum would have to be arranged by the end of the year unsettled many, who fear that this will exact even more sacrifices in terms of extra taxes and more unemployment. “I won’t feel the haircut, but what I will feel are the effects of new austerity measures that will undoubtedly be piled on top of the ones we’re already burdened with,” said Panayiotis Rigas, a 35-year-old security guard, as he made his way to work.

“No one knows what this haircut means,” said Tatiana Andrioti, a 42-year-old office worker. “If we’ve really managed to prevent the country going bankrupt, are we really that better off?”

Behind them, other Athenians scrutinised the headlines at a kiosk. “German tank brings new memorandum” thundered left-wing Eleftherotypia while centre-left Ta Nea was more moderate: “The agreement for the haircut brings a breather but also commitments”.

But amid all the confusion and uncertainty, it was inevitable the focus would shift to the fact the deal was struck only a day ahead of October 28th – a national holiday in Greece commemorating the second World War – in an unfortunate and eerie coincidence.

It was on this day – known as Ochi (No) day that the Greeks in 1940 refused to buckle under pressure from Mussolini who demanded that Italian troops be allowed passage on Greek soil.

Now many critics of George Papandreou’s government charge it with conceding national sovereignty and agreeing to subject the country to at least a decade of external supervision.

Under the memorandum of understanding on a new “multiannual programme” that euro zone ministers agreed will be signed before the year’s end, the quarterly reviews by visiting troika inspectors will be replaced by a permanent team of external supervisors. It’s the “permanent supervision” that German chancellor Angela Merkel spoke about in the Bundestag before flying to Brussels for the summit.

The return to Athens this week of the head of the European Commission’s task force for Greece for talks with ministers on strategy has been taken by many Greeks as a sign of what is to come. Because he is a German, Horst Reichenbach, an official at the commission for over 30 years, is frequently depicted in cartoons in the Greek press wearing Nazi uniforms.

A good measure of the reaction to the deal will come today at parades marking Ochi day in every town and city in the country.