PROTESTERS returned to the streets of Beirut yesterday as senior Lebanese politicians met for talks on ways to break a continuing government deadlock.

The impasse has sparked the most serious anti-government demonstrations in decades.

Groups of activists confronted security forces near the parliament building yesterday, shouting: “Thieves!” as ­convoys of politicians drove by, pelting their cars with eggs and tipping their domestic rubbish over the parliament’s fences. A huge demonstration was expected last night.

Lebanon’s latest crisis has been sparked by public anger over the heaps of refuse accumulating in Beirut’s streets after city authorities closed the capital’s main landfill on July 17 and failed to provide an alternative.

The protests quickly moved beyond just the rubbish in the street to target an entire political class.

Thousands of people have taken part in huge anti-corruption demonstrations over the past two weeks.

Among other things, the angry protesters are demanding new parliamentary elections, to be followed by presidential elections.

The country has been without a president for over a year and MPs have illegally extended their term of office twice amid disputes over election law.

So far, the only response to the growing protest movement has been a pledge by parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri to start yesterday’s high-level talks among the politicians.

Mr Berri’s call for dialogue has been backed by political leaders, but it remains unclear how such talks among the selfsame politicians who are being vilified by the protesters would help to break the deadlock.