- Flowers, candles and sympathy notes are left at the spot where the man took his life
- He reportedly says in a suicide note that the government had made it impossible to survive
- Hundreds gather for a vigil in the square where he died late Wednesday
- Greece is in the grip of an austerity crisis following years of recession
Athens, Greece (CNN) -- Greeks paid tribute Thursday to an elderly man who took his own life in central Athens in an apparent response to the hardship caused by the austerity crisis.
Flowers, candles and handwritten sympathy notes sat by a tree in Syntagma Square, where the man committed suicide Wednesday morning.
Hundreds gathered to pay their respects Wednesday night at the square, which faces the parliament building and has been the scene of most of the anti-austerity rallies in recent years.
Minor clashes between police and protesters followed the vigil.
The man, a retired pharmacist in his mid-70s, wrote in a suicide note that the government had made it impossible for him to survive, according to Greek state TV.
Athanassios Kokkalakis, a police spokesman, said the man's daughter handed the press a suicide note, but did not confirm what it said.
Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos expressed his regret Wednesday in a statement issued by his office.
According to health ministry data, the suicide rate jumped about 40% in the first five months of 2011 compared with a year earlier.
"It is tragic when a fellow human being takes his own life. In those difficult times for our society we must all -- state and citizens -- support those next to us who stand in despair," he said.
Pantelis Kapsis, a Greek government spokesman, told reporters the man's death was "a human tragedy," but said the circumstances are still unknown, according to a government website.
"I don't have any comment and I don't think this story offers anything to the political discussion," Kapsis said.
Greece, which is at the center of Europe's debt crisis, has struggled with an unsustainable level of debt and an economy that has been in recession for years.
Ngo Klimaka, a nongovernmental organization that runs a suicide helpline, has said the number of people calling has doubled in the past year.
Under its second bailout program, approved earlier this year, Greece has agreed to implement a series of austerity measures and undertake broader reforms to make its economy more competitive.
Greece had an unemployment rate of 21% as of December 2011, according to figures from Eurostat, the European Union statistics office.
Those cuts come on top of measures brought in after the first bailout in 2010.
CNN's Christine Theodorou and Theo Nikolaou contributed to this report.
