“God, Honor, Fatherland”: in Poland, more than 250,000 people gather for a nationalist march in Warsaw

“God, honor, homeland”: 250,000 people, according to the police, double that number, according to the organizers, took part in a “patriotic” and nationalist march in Warsaw on Wednesday on the occasion of Polish Independence Day.

In a country under tension after the Krakow massacre, and politically very divided, the authorities feared excesses, but the march was held without major incidents, noted AFP journalists on site.

At its head, nationalist President Karol Nawrocki, followed by leaders of the main right-wing and far-right parties. “There are surely more than half a million Poles,” Rafal Buca, spokesperson for the organizers, told AFP, while Warsaw town hall estimated the number of participants at 250,000.

“Poland is not for sale”

Organized on the occasion of the national holiday which commemorates the country's independence in 1918, the demonstration, among the largest in Europe, attracts all shades of the right, from conservatives to nationalists, from sovereignists to supremacists.

On their website, the organizers explain that they defend “national identity, sovereignty and national interests, as well as the Christian order”, ranked behind the motto: “God, Honor, Fatherland”. The whole country and institutions celebrate this day but the march has only existed since 2011. This year, the slogan was “The Poles, masters of Poland”.

In the crowd, we could read “Make Europe white again” on a large banner held by young people dressed in black, hooded. Some of them waved flags bearing Celtic crosses. “Poland is not for sale”, proclaimed another, and still another “remigration, deportation”. Slogans were also directed against the government of centrist and pro-European Prime Minister Donald Tusk, calling him a “dictator”.