From Bristol to Budapest via Madrid and Rome, tens of thousands of Europeans joined anti-racism protests on Sunday, prolonging the wave of protests sparked in the United States by the death of a black man asphyxiated by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
Some 3,000 people, according to the Madrid prefecture , gathered at noon in front of the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. Black and white, they denounced the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American, repeating his last words "I cannot breathe" , and chanting "No peace without justice" .
The Madrid demonstrators knelt on the ground raising their fists. They then walked peacefully to the iconic Puerta del Sol, in the heart of the capital. "Racism knows no borders, " said Leinisa Seemdo, a 26-year-old Spanish translator from Cape Verde. I have lived in China, Portugal, and now in Spain, and in every country I have experienced discrimination because of my skin color. ”
Demonstrations took place in a dozen Spanish cities, from Barcelona in the north to Valencia on the Mediterranean coast.
La Puerta del Sol, Madrid, Sunday. Gabriel BOUYS / AFP
In Rome , an unforeseen demonstration gathered in the vast Piazza del Popolo thousands of young people who knelt in silence, raised their fists, for nine minutes, the time during which a policeman pressed his knee on the neck of George Floyd until 'when he died. When they got up, they shouted: "I can't breathe"!
Piazza del Popolo, in Rome. Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP
In the crowd in Rome, which included many African immigrants, Michael Taylor, originally from Botswana, came with his whole family. "I am a white African, and I sometimes feel fear and contempt only because I am a foreigner. Imagine what it would be like if I were black. ”
Braving the authorities' ban, thousands of Britons demonstrated in London for the second day in a row, but also in other cities in the United Kingdom, including Bristol . In this city in the South West of England with a slave-like past, a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was unbolted and then trampled on by the demonstrators once it fell to the ground. She was then thrown into the Avon.
In Thailand where an anti-racist demonstration had been banned, more than 200 people took part in a virtual protest, logging onto the conference site Zoom to watch videos on the "Black Lives Matter" movement. ") And raise a fist against police violence.
In Brussels, clashes took place with the police. AFP
In Brussels , nearly 10,000 protesters according to the police, expressed their anger in front of the courthouse. The police intervened after the demonstration to disperse thugs, shops were looted.
Thousands also marched against racism in the Netherlands, in the North to Zwolle and in Maastricht in the South.
In Germany , players from four Bundesliga clubs knelt on the ground on Sunday in support of anti-racism after Bayern and Dortmund.
Dressed in black, thousands of Swiss people marched to Lausanne , where signs proclaimed: "My color is not a threat" .
In Copenhagen , some 15,000 people, police said, demonstrated peacefully to incite the Danish government to speak out against violence against the black community in the United States. Chanting the name of George Floyd - and for some brandishing posters "Black lives matter" - the procession left the Embassy of the United States in the early afternoon to go to the royal palace of Christiansborg.
In neighboring Sweden, in Gothenburg, nearly 2,000 people gathered but the demonstration - authorized - was quickly dissolved due to the limitation of gatherings set at 50 people in the country for health reasons. Several incidents have broken out - including fights between demonstrators, throwing objects against the police and broken windows in a shopping center - local media reported. In the early evening, two people were arrested according to the police.
In Budapest, more than a thousand people also gathered near the American embassy, respecting eight minutes of silence or denouncing "police everywhere, justice nowhere" on their placards.
On Saturday, protests took place from Australia to Tunisia via France and Britain, protesters also denouncing racism in their own country.