Poland: demonstrations to “stay in Europe”

At the appeal of the former Prime Minister and former President of the European Council Donald Tusk, dozens of events were organized throughout the country.

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It’s facing a compact crowd of tens of thousands of people (nearly 100,000, depending on the optimistic estimate of the City Hall press service) that Donald Tusk, President of the Greater Party D Opposition (Civic Platform, Po), spoke on Sunday, October 10, on the small square facing the Royal Palace of Warsaw, in the heart of the old town. Brandishing Polish and European flags, they had responded to the appeal that the former president of the European Council had launched three days earlier, after the constitutional judges of the country had made a controversial judgment questioning the principle of rule of law. of the European Union (EU), angular stone of the Community legal order.

Pro-EU event as a result of a judgment of the Constitutional Court against the Primalty of European Law in Poland, Warsaw, October 10, 2021.

“I call everyone who wants to defend a European poland to join me,” he launched in a tweet. In addition to the rally in the capital, more than a hundred events have been identified across the country. Despite the diversity of stakeholders (veterans of the Insurrection of Warsaw of 1944, members of civil society, political staff, artists …), The same message has detached from the speeches: in the face of the multiple attacks on the State of Law of which the right and justice party has been guilty since its arrival in 2015, the EU can and must act as a life buoy.

“The European institutions must support us!, Exclaimed the Marta Lempart Tribune, one of the emblematic figures of the organization” Women’s Strike “(Ogolnopolski Strajk Kobiet) who led protests against annihilation of the right to the IVG by the Constitutional Court a year ago. Because it is we who lead this war for European values. “

Two important defects

Despite a relative successful completion, however, the event suffered two important defects. On the one hand, the net under-representation of young people in an audience whose average age seems to be around 50 years. A fact that explains the energy spent by Adam Bodnar, former advocate of rights, to convince them during his intervention: “The struggle for the rule of law is not just a case of lawyers: it’s your fight It’s your future! “

Second element, a strange feeling of imbalance in the representation of political parties. While the PO was represented at the highest level (in addition to Mr. Tusk, were present the President of the Senate, Tomasz Grodzki, as well as the Mayor of Warsaw and former presidential candidate, Rafal Trzaskowski), no major personality of the camp. Of the pro-European opposition has made the displacement, failing to have been associated upstream at the initiative of Mr. Tusk. In particular, the absence of Szymon Holownia, former television feature and figure of the third political force of the country, has been bitterly noticed.

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/Media reports.