Poles march on Independence Day after attack and tension

Dtoday, the 108th anniversary of Poland's independence was celebrated by a march in Warsaw, by tension between the government and the presidency for the control of the Constitutional Court and after an attack in Krakow.

In a speech in Pilsudski Square in the Polish capital, the President, Karol Nawrocki, harshly criticised the institutional and judicial crisis that the country is going through, saying that in recent weeks the prestige of the Constitutional Court (TC) “was buried”.

He defended the reconstruction of the institution through a joint effort to return it to the citizens, arguing that Poland deserves a “police-free” and “political-free” court.

The Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, reacted in a message released on social network X, saying that the President, “at least on this day, could have tried not to divide the Poles but to unite them”.

“A pity”, wrote the Polish government’s chief, who spent the day in Szczeczin, near the German border, to preside over the launch ceremony of a Navy ship.

Still, Tusk publicly invited Nawrocki and his family to their home in Sopot, northern Poland, to “sit at the kitchen table and face to face from Polish to Polish” in an attempt to reduce political polarisation and tension around the TC issue.

Meanwhile, in Warsaw, the traditional March of Independence took place, which brought together tens of thousands of people and counted on the presence of the main leaders of the parliamentary right, including leaders of the ultranationalist party Law and Justice (PiS) and the formation of the far-right Confederation.

The day was also marked by the commotion caused by the attack last Saturday in Krakow, when a man, at the wheel of a vehicle, broke into Market Square and opened fire on the crowd, causing six deaths and 15 wounded, after allegedly killing his parents and sister in their hometown.

In a context of growing concern for public safety, the municipal authorities shielded the city center with concrete blocks, highlighted a reinforced police device and banned the carrying of firearms and pyrotechnic devices, with a large number of signaling rockets and smoke bombs among the crowd.

The March of Independence has been held for over a decade at the initiative of small ultranationalist groups and has been affirmed as an occasion for all Polish right-wing forces to unite and show their capacity for mobilization.