Tens of thousands of people say no to Ukraine's war in Europe

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of European cities such as Paris, London, Rome, Zurich and Hamburg this Saturday to protest against the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin against Ukraine and to show their solidarity with the population. of this beleaguered country.

One of the largest concentrations was recorded in Zurich, where some 40,000 people demanded, under the slogan "peace now" and between Ukrainian flags, an immediate ceasefire, diplomatic negotiations and the withdrawal of Russian troops, reports the Swiss agency ATS .

Also in the German city of Hamburg some 30,000 people gathered to demand "peace in Ukraine and security in Europe", according to Reuters.

Last week, up to 100,000 people took to the streets in Berlin to protest a war that has already caused more than 1.3 million refugees to flee to the European Union.

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In Paris, 16,000 people, according to the police prefecture, gathered in the Republic Square in "support for the Ukrainian resistance", as read on the blue and yellow banner - the colors of the Ukrainian flag - on the header of the demonstration, supported by political personalities from various fields, including two presidential candidates: the socialist Anne Hidalgo and the environmentalist Yannick Jadot.

“We have to show that Putin is isolated, that he has no possible space, that we have understood that what he is looking for is to attack the values ​​of Europe.

We are here today to answer you," Hidalgo told reporters as he advanced in the march, in which former Justice Ministers Christiane Taubira also participated, who this week withdrew from the presidential race in which she had run as an alternative to the left. and the conservative Rachida Dati, among others.

Representing President Emmanuel Macron, who has just made his candidacy official to repeat his mandate, paraded the general delegate of the La República en Marcha party, Stanislas Guerini.

As he declared, the demonstration sends a "clear, simple message: we will not abandon the Ukrainians, we will continue to pressure Russia, we will strengthen sanctions if necessary, we will continue to help Ukrainians on the ground by sending weapons, welcoming refugees."

Trade unions and the Communist Party of France (PCF) of also presidential candidate Fabien Roussel gathered in another demonstration in Paris several hundred more people like Evelyne, a retired journalist and "pacifist, trade unionist and member of the PCF" for whom Putin is "a dictator of the worst kind that has nothing to do with communism”, he stressed.

At his side, Consuelo González, the daughter of Spanish Republicans exiled in France during the Civil War, said that the images she now sees on television from Ukraine remind her of what her mother told her as a child about the flight of the Republicans who were escaping from the advance of Franco's troops.

Although to a lesser extent, the French also came out to protest against the war in Ukraine in another hundred demonstrations throughout the country.

In total, 41,600 people demonstrated across France on Saturday, according to the Interior Ministry.

In London, the rejection of the aggression ordered by Putin brought several hundred people to the streets who gathered in Trafalgar Square to demand an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and pray for peace, while carrying flags and banners with slogans such as “Putin kills” and “Embargo on Russia”.

Another similar “peace demonstration” took place in Rome, where several thousand people responded to the call to protest from various unions and NGOs.

“This is perhaps one of the first real demonstrations for peace.

Nobody here believes that peace is made with weapons, sending weapons to one of the parties," Italian cartoonist, actor and writer Vauro Senesi told AFP, surrounded by thousands of people.

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