“We don’t want 20%, or 50%, or 75%, we want what they fraudulently stole from us”, the group said in a communiqué, stressing that the protesters would continue until they got back the money that had a bank with apparently the highest guarantee had “shamelessly” extorted from them.

Last Thursday, the Portuguese government confirmed that the first part of the compensation payments for the BES victims of about €140 million, would be covered by the state coffers and that the victims should receive the pay-outs in April.

BES, as it used to be known, finished on 3 August 2014, four days after presenting an all-time loss of €3.6 billion.

The Bank of Portugal, used a resolution measure to take over the bank and separated it into a good bank, called Novo Banco, while the toxic assets from BES were kept in a bad bank, with no banking licence.