Far-right groups push back as protesters rally in Europe
LONDON — Thousands of people rallied against police brutality and racism in European cities Saturday, punctuating a week of protests across the continent, but far-right demonstrators also emerged in large groups for the first time — particularly in London — leading to sometimes violent confrontations that included attacks on police officers.
The anti-racism marches and rallies in Europe, energized by demonstrations in the United States in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, have led to the destruction of statues linked to slavery and demands for a reckoning with racial discrimination. European protesters have denounced the bigotry within their own countries and demanded that authorities address it.
But Saturday was the first day when far-right groups and protesters, most of them white, fiercely pushed back. The situation grew especially tense in London, where crowds of white male counterprotesters clashed repeatedly with police.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who just a day earlier had criticized the anti-racism demonstrations and exhorted Britons to avoid them, denounced the far-right attacks on police as “racist thuggery.” Johnson said the protest marches had been subverted by violence and declared that “racism has no place in the U.K.”
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that more than 100 people had been arrested by day’s end for offenses that included “breach of the peace, violent disorder, assault on officers, possession of an offensive weapon, possession of class-A drugs, and drunk and disorder.”
The protest and counterprotest came to an explosive head in Trafalgar Square, when small numbers of Black Lives Matter supporters and their antagonists threw bottles and booming fireworks against one another while police tried to separate them.
Parliament Square, where thousands of Black Lives Matter protesters had gathered just a week ago, was filled Saturday with hundreds of overwhelmingly white male counterdemonstrators. Many said they had assembled to prevent attacks targeting the statues in the square, especially that of Winston Churchill.
“People are defacing my history and my culture,” said Dave Allen, a 30-year-old lawyer from London who had joined the counterprotest. “That’s why these people are here, because we feel we’re getting attacked.”
Videos shared on social media showed mounted police officers standing guard in Parliament Square in front of boarded-up statues and repelling far-right protesters who threatened and punched them.
The confrontations in London came days after racism protesters tore down a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader, in Bristol, and others scrawled “racist” on a Churchill statue in Parliament Square.
The statue of Churchill, a usually revered figure in Britain who steered the country through World War II, was later covered to protect it. Johnson called the episode “absurd and shameful” in a Twitter posting Friday in which he acknowledged Churchill had “sometimes expressed opinions that were and are unacceptable to us today, but he was a hero, and he fully deserves his memorial.”
In Paris, some 15,000 people rallied to demand justice for Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old who died in 2016 after police had arrested him. Amid the overwhelmingly young crowds, demonstrators waved signs reading “No justice, no peace” and “Black Lives Matter,” less than two weeks after 20,000 protesters had assembled in front of a Paris court for Traoré. The Saturday protests were organized by The Truth For Adama, an advocacy group led by Traoré’s sister, Assa Traoré. The rally remained largely peaceful, although police officers threw tear gas and clashed with protesters in the late afternoon.
“In France, we have a tendency to deny thorny issues like race,” said Isabelle Blanche, a 41year-old black protester who came with her brother. She said that it had taken Floyd’s death in the U.S. “for people to finally wake up.”
As in London, the atmosphere in Paris had grown tense earlier in the afternoon when far-right activists unfurled a large red banner reading “White Lives Matter” on the roof of a building of the plaza. The crowd below chanted, “No justice, no peace,” in response and later cheered residents who tore down the lower part of the banner with chisels and knives. Some threw fireworks at the far-right activists, who were later chased off the roof by a handful of protesters.
Police in Paris reminded the public that gatherings of more than 10 people were forbidden, and they asked businesses and restaurants to close near the Place de la République, where thousands remained Saturday in defiance of police barricades leading to the plaza.
Many protesters were unfazed by the warnings. “I’m less afraid of the coronavirus than I’m afraid of being killed by the police,” said Cécilia Ranguin, a 20-year-old law student, who is black.
Saturday evening, France’s highest administrative court, the Conseil d’Etat, reestablished the right to protest, provided that protesters respect health measures like mask-wearing and social distancing and that the gathering does not exceed 5,000 people.
In London, police urged people to avoid demonstrating in the city and set a 5 p.m. deadline for all protesters to leave the defined demonstration routes.
As the 5 p.m. curfew approached, police were taking measures to ensure that the rightwing groups were kept separate from the Black Lives Matter protesters.
The presence of far-right counterprotesters Saturday added a new layer of complexity to an already tense situation in Britain and France, where demonstrators’ demands have been met with resistance from police forces, who argue that instances of racism by their members have been isolated episodes.
After France’s interior minister on Monday promised “zero tolerance” of racism in the police and proposed a ban on chokeholds — a tactic that is increasingly prohibited in the U.S., where protests continue — French police contested the ban and other reforms by staging a demonstration of their own Friday, in which they threw down handcuffs at stations across the country.