Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium: tension mounts in Europe over the return of anti-Covid restrictions – BFMTV

This weekend saw an upsurge in anti-restriction demonstrations against Covid-19 and their procession of violence in several European countries. Unrest erupted in Austria but also in Brussels and in several cities in the Netherlands.

Certainly, the Covid-19 agitates the French news and certain streets of the territory. The unrest continues in Guadeloupe – where 30 people must pass in front of the court of Pointe-à-Pitre on Monday – in the wake of a compulsory anti-vaccination mobilization of caregivers, coupled with a social dissatisfaction. A situation which also threatens to spread oil in Martinique where a call for a general strike has been launched.

But among some of our neighbors, where the worrying revival of the epidemic is leading to the return of restrictions, the tension is already appearing much stronger. In Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, the weekend was marked by rallies hostile to these devices and by numerous clashes.

Three nights of violence in the Netherlands

The violence knows a particular outburst in the Netherlands, which comes out on Monday from three consecutive nights of anger. On Friday, four protesters were even injured in Rotterdam by police gunfire. 145 people have already been arrested, if we take into account all the interventions carried out in the face of the weekend mobilizations.

26 people were arrested Sunday in Rotterdam during a football match of the local club Feyenoord, for excesses motivated by the health crisis and the means taken to curb it, or 15 people in the municipality of Rosendaal after the fire of a primary school.

Fireworks, causing material damage, also lit up the night in Groningen, Tilburg, Leewarden, or Enschede between Sunday and Monday.

The reason for these multiple scuffles is explained by the return, since last week, of partial confinement in the country – where restaurants must also close from 8 p.m. – and the prospect of seeing certain public places inaccessible to the unvaccinated.

Austria is reconfiguring itself and the far right is mobilizing

Austria is already well beyond this stage. The country, which recorded a curve of 981 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the week, is subject to a very strict re-containment from this Monday and until at least December 13.

The only exceptions to the system: school, work, sports activities or medical appointments. Public authorities have also announced that vaccination will be compulsory for all citizens from February 1, 2022.

A political will which has come up against in recent days the animosity of a part of the society which has expressed its opposition, in conditions however more serene than in the Netherlands.

Thus, while 6,000 people gathered in protest in the city of Linz on Sunday, 40,000 people gathered in Vienna on Saturday, at the call of the far-right formation of the FPÖ (for Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, or Austrian Liberal Party).

Austria’s vaccination rate is relatively low, with only 66% of the eligible population fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

35,000 demonstrators in Brussels and clashes with the police

Belgium is also experiencing a new turn of the sanitary screw, faced with a worrying situation. An average of 10,300 new daily infections has been recorded throughout the past week.

In the street, the protest rises. Sunday, in Brussels, the police counted 35,000 demonstrators gathered in particular against the systematization of telework and the extension of the wearing of the mask.

And the event has degenerated there too. Two policemen were injured, and a protester had to be evacuated by ambulance.