The Polish president, prime minister and other top officials on Sunday led an Independence Day march as part of a day of centenary celebrations, trailed by a huge crowd.
More than 250,000 people marched in Warsaw to mark the 100th anniversary of Poland’s rebirth as an independent state at the end of World War I, police said.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the leader of the conservative ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, walked in a crowd fronted by soldiers carrying a huge banner that read: “For You Poland.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Walking a small distance behind them was another crowd, many of them burning firecrackers and flares, creating flashes of red light and smoke.
Most in that contingent carried national white-and-red flags, but some held flags of the National Radical Camp, one of the main march organizers.
There were also a few flags for Forza Nuova, an Italian group whose leader, Roberto Fiore, describes himself as fascist.
One of the march organizers, Krzysztof Bosak, said that Forza Nuova is a group of nationalists that is in touch with the Polish group.
Among the slogans that participants shouted were “USA, empire of evil” and “Poland, white and Catholic.”
Members of the All-Polish Youth group burned an EU flag. An EU flag was also burned at another nationalist rally in Wroclaw. The city’s mayor dissolved the march during speeches toward its end.
Sunday’s was by far the largest Independence Day march to date.
Government spokeswoman Joanna Kopcinska said it was “the biggest march of free Poles in a free Poland.”
This year, in honor of the centennial, state officials sought to hold one big government-led march for Sunday’s ceremonies. At first, negotiations broke down over requests for groups to leave controversial banners at home, but an agreement on a joint march was reached on Friday.
“Let this be our joint march, let it be a march for everyone, a march where everyone wants to be and feels good, marching for Poland,” Duda said at the start of the march.
Duda and the government faced criticism from liberal opposition politicians for their willingness to negotiate with nationalists. After some individuals showed up with extremist emblems, the state officials — surrounded by security — appeared to try to keep some distance from the nationalists, marching ahead of them on the same route.
Throughout the day, observances, Masses, marathons and fireworks were held in cities and small towns to commemorate the nation’s statehood regained at the end of World War I, after 123 years of foreign rule.
The national flag fluttered from buildings, buses and cars, while dignitaries and regular citizens placed flowers at memorials to the father of Polish independence, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski. The historic Sigismund Bell, reserved only for the most important national events, rang out over Krakow.
March participant Bartlomiej Mazur, 23, who traveled 320km to the capital, said he wanted to show that “Poland is a strong, proud nation — we have freedom and we have the right to manifest our feelings and our pride in our country.”
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants with tuberculosis (TB) that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day. The jumbo effort at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets — the same as those used to treat TB in humans — hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets. The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000kg elephants. However, it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they
RSS