LISBON, Portugal - Garish costumes, scary masks and bright wigs trumped dreary economic austerity Tuesday as most Portuguese defied a government appeal to keep working on one of their deeply beloved holidays: Carnival.
It was a spontaneous "Ja chega!" -- "That's enough!" -- from a people who have suffered in Europe's debt crisis but have not rioted, set streets aflame and heaved chunks of marble at police like their fellow bailout colleagues, the Greeks.
The streets of Lisbon, the capital, were deserted and eerily quiet Tuesday, resembling a typical Sunday morning. Offices stood empty and banks were shuttered. Well over half of workers stayed home, local media estimated.
Instead, tens thousands of people, many dressed in colorful handmade costumes and men often in drag, were expected later to attend traditional street parades around the country featuring elaborate floats, loud Brazilian samba music and dancing.
The mild, sunny winter day was apparently just the ticket for the austerity blues.
Nationwide, the government's attempt to make people work more by scrapping the traditional Fat Tuesday holiday flopped as most companies and many public services shut down.
The spontaneous choice of revelry over austerity -- imposed last year in return for a C78 billion ($103 billion) international bailout Portugal needed to avoid bankruptcy -- came at a particularly embarrassing moment for the government. Inspectors from the bailout lenders were in Lisbon for a regular review of whether Portugal is honouring its promise to reduce debt and improve economic output.
Government ministers, lawmakers and the head of state worked normally. Civil servants had to turn up for work too, but most local councils and state-owned companies closed, media reported. Train engineers went on a 24-hour strike to protest the government's anti-holiday call.
Marilia Gomes, a middle-aged worker at a Lisbon tax office, said she resented having to work on a holiday she cherished.
"Carnival is about getting rid of your sadness, letting your hair down," she said during her lunch break, calling scrapping the holiday "a lack of respect for working people."
Local television stations showed some civil servants going to work in outrageous wigs, masks and outsize glasses.
Others, however, agreed with the government's plea for people to knuckle down and beat the financial crisis by working more.
"We have to work for the good of the country," said Manuel Agostinho, an unemployed 54-year-old. "It's no laughing matter."
Portugal sunk into a double-dip recession last year, and the government forecasts the economy will shrink a further 3 per cent this year. Unemployment is at a record 14 per cent. Portugal's debt load and feeble growth over the past decade have contributed to Europe's financial woes, prompting its eurozone partners to grant it a financial rescue package last year.
Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho refused to grant the usual day off for Carnival, which is not an official public holiday. But the last time a government refused to recognize Fat Tuesday as a holiday was during the 1993 economic crisis.
The prime minister said he hoped people would understand the need for sacrifices.
"This isn't a normal year, it's an important year of national emergency," Passos Coelho said at the time. "(I hope) the Portuguese understand that this is no time to be talking about tradition, it's about finding out who wants to beat this crisis and who wants to cling to old traditions."
The government made no comment Tuesday about the public's rejection of its appeal.
Although unions have staged strikes and protests against the tax hikes and pay cuts, the Portuguese have largely accepted the austerity program with resignation, exhibiting none of the street violence that has wracked Greece.
While Carnival in Portugal doesn't match the glamor and all-night revelry seen in Brazil, it is tremendously popular with children and adults alike. Many rural towns and villages observe centuries-old traditions, some of them pagan, many of them comical, vulgar and satirical.
With local authorities who organize street parades feeling the economic crunch, festivities this year were scaled back. Brazilian soap opera stars are often invited to be kings and queens of Portuguese carnivals but this year the VIP guests were mostly national celebrities.
The celebrations in Torres Vedras, 100 kilometres north of Lisbon, are known as "the most Portuguese Carnival" but the local council cut spending this year 16 per cent. Even so, it spent around C400,000 ($531,000) on Carnival events and expects to draw thousands of visitors.
In many places, the celebrations will end with a meal made of dried salted cod -- a typical Portuguese dish -- to mark the start of the Roman Catholic period of Lent.
