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The most important pro-European event was in Cologne on Sunday 19 May 2019. REUTERS / Thilo Schmuelgen

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated this Sunday, May 19 across Europe against the far right. But it is in Germany where this initiative was born that the mobilization was the most important.

With our correspondent in Berlin, Pascal Thibaut

There were several tens of thousands in nearly 50 European cities and 13 countries to demonstrate a week before elections that should be marked by a rise in power of the far-right.

In Germany, where mobilization was concentrated in seven major cities, 240 civil society organizations called for demonstrations of solidarity, democracy, a fortress Europe and racism. Ecological themes were also very present.

The organizers estimated to have gathered 150,000 people, with a third of them in Cologne. In Berlin, on the other hand, the mobilization did not meet expectations.

In Vienna, where a few thousand protesters gathered, the event took on particular importance after the break-up of the coalition between the conservatives and the extreme right. In Poland, it was the women's rights that the protesters had chosen to highlight.