"Free thinkers", anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy activists or even neo-Nazis and far-right sympathizers ... Up to 30,000 people marched in Berlin on Saturday during the "festival of freedom and peace", a march against restrictive measures against the Covid-19 pandemic, primarily the compulsory wearing of a mask. A very controversial event across the Rhine as the circulation of the coronavirus progresses throughout Europe.
>> LIVE - Coronavirus: follow the evolution of the situation Saturday, August 29
JFK's nephew present
Officially dissolved at 1 p.m. because the demonstrators did not respect the barrier gestures, the situation began to become tense at the end of the afternoon around the famous Brandenburg Gate, the police calling for the dispersal of the demonstrators. Among the speakers who have followed one another on the podium, there is the nephew of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who came to launch his anti-vaccine NGO.
"Even today, Berlin is on the front line against global totalitarianism and those who are here today can proudly say 'Ich bin ein Berliner'". Reference to the famous phrase of the 35th President of the United States during his speech of June 26, 1963, on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the blockade of Berlin.
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The majority far right at the end of the afternoon
As night falls on the German capital, the motley crowd of anti-vaccines, representatives of esoteric sects, pacifists and conspirators have gradually been outnumbered by far-right activists. We can thus see in the procession of notorious neo-Nazis, anti-Semites already condemned, but also many members of the Reichsbürger, the movement of citizens of the Reich.
The latter refuse to recognize the Federal Republic of Germany and think that it is not sovereign since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. According to them, Chancellor Angela Merkel is a puppet in the hands of evil and totalitarian foreign powers. Overused, they are now calling on social networks to make the seat of Parliament to regain power.