Protests in the capital Reykjavik have brought thousands of people on to the streets in the biggest demonstrations the country has ever seen. As a result, the coalition government between the Samfylkingin (Social Democrats) and the Conservative Independence Party has broken up. The government of Iceland is thus the first to fall as a consequence of the present economic crisis. It will not be the last.
We have seen companies go under, banks on the verge of collapse, but in Iceland what we have seen is a whole country going bankrupt. Up until very recently Iceland was presented as the ideal place to live as a model for others to follow, but it was all based on mountains of growing debt.