In Greece, Growing Restlessness Amid Push for Cuts ATHENS - Public opposition to austerity budgets deepened in Greece Monday, with judges stopping work, doctors going on strike and public transport staff and schoolteachers planning action for later this week. The moves are prelude to a general strike called by the country's main labor unions for Sept. The protests are gaining steam even as Europe's fears of a Greek exit from the euro zone seem to be subsiding. On Monday Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said she wanted Greece to stay in the euro currency union, reiterating what appears now to be her steadfast position after months of hesitating on the issue. "I think that everyone who is politically sensible will want that, too," she said during a news conference in Berlin. Her remarks came as the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, renewed efforts on Monday to come up with a tough new €11.5 billion, or $15 billion, austerity package. The additional cuts are needed to meet the terms of Greece's €130 billion bailout and to unlock a €31.5 billion loan installment that Athens hopes to receive in October to stay solvent. Faced with rising discontent, Mr. Samaras has been asking Greece's international creditors for more time to impose any new cuts, lest the economy, which contracted by 6.2 percent in the second quarter, go further into tailspin. Over the weekend, European finance ministers meeting in Cyprus seemed willing to give Greece some breathing room. Finance Minister Maria Fekter of Austria said in a newspaper interview that Greece could get more time to meet its targets, but not more money. Still, Mr. Samaras faces an uphill battle. Last week, in an unprecedented repudiation, Greece's so-called troika of lenders - the International Monetary Fund, the European Central bank and the European Commission - rejected about €4 billion of Mr. Samaras's proposed cuts, saying in effect that they did not believe he would be able deliver. The troika is said to be unconvinced by suggestions for cutbacks in the health and defense sectors and is pushing the government to take a knife to the civil service - a sacred cow and influential voting bloc that few Greek politicians have been willing to touch. The Greek finance ministry, in turn, is reportedly considering raising the retirement age to 67 from 65. An agreement on the austerity plan must be reached before troika releases a report card by early October assessing Greece's progress in getting its debt - forecast to reach 161 percent of gross domestic product this year - down to about 120 percent of G.D.P. by 2020. The €31.5 billion tranche of new aid depends on whether that report is positive or negative. But even if Greece gets the money, most of it would not go toward relieving the financial burden on the Greek people or toward helping to revive the moribund economy. Instead, about 85 percent of it, or €24.7 billion, will be funneled to weak Greek banks to replenish their capital cushions. As protests mount, opposition parties have been gaining ground in the polls. The neo-facist Golden Dawn party, which won 18 parliamentary seats in the last election, has seen its popularity climb in recent weeks, especially as concerns rise about how to deal with a surfeit of illegal immigrants as the economy craters. Golden Dawn continues to intensify organized attacks on immigrants, and recently has been filming its activity and posting videos to YouTube. The main leftist opposition party, Syriza, is now neck-and-neck with Mr. Samaras's New Democracy party in the polls. Should public unhappiness rise sharply, there would be a "non-negligible risk of a government collapse," analysts at Nomura said in a recent assessment. A parliamentary vote on the budget cuts that had been expected this week is now being postponed until the end of the month, as some members of Mr. Samaras's three-party coalition government dig in against proposals to slash pensions and lay off civil servants. In the coming days, Mr. Samaras will meet with members of his coalition government, the socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos and the chief of the moderate Democratic Left party, Fotis Kouvelis, to secure their backing for the new austerity package. They have objected to deep cuts, but they have indicated that they will not jeopardize the stability of the government. Niki Kitsantonis contributed reporting.