Thousands of nationalists march through Warsaw on Poland’s Independence Day. The damaged Baltic Sea ferry Marco Polo leaves Swedish waters

Thousands of nationalists marched through the streets of Warsaw on Poland’s Independence Day. The demonstration under the motto “Poland is not yet lost” started on Saturday afternoon in the city center and was expected to end in the National Stadium.

Many participants held up white and red flags, others carried hand torches. Television images showed crowds of people. There was initially no official information about the number of participants. The organizers even spoke of the “largest patriotic meeting in Europe”.

Opposition leader Donald Tusk called for moderation in a video message on Independence Day on Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO) and two other parties have a majority in the Sejm, the lower house of parliament, which meets on Monday. However, previous Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was given the first order to form a government by the national conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS).

On the eve of the national holiday, PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski had already warned about Germany’s alleged dominance in the European Union. “We Poles want to be free, we want to be independent and we do not want to submit to the Germans,” the 74-year-old said, according to the PAP office. A “concrete plan” has already been drawn up that, if implemented by the EU, would lead to the loss of sovereignty and the “destruction of the Polish state,” Kaczynski claimed.

Independence Day commemorates the fact that the state’s founder, Jozef Pilsudski, returned to Warsaw from his captivity in Magdeburg in 1918 and took command of the Polish troops on November 11. After the First World War, long-divided Poland became independent from Prussia, Austria-Hungary and Russia.

(hah/sda/dpa)