Fourth consecutive weekend of anti-racism protests in UK, France

Anti-racism demonstrators held protests across Europe on Saturday, with a fourth weekend of marches in the UK, despite a ban on large gatherings because of the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile in France, hundreds of people protested in Paris against racism and police violence and in memory of black men who died following encounters with French police or under suspicious circumstances. Demonstrations inspired by the Black Lives Matter campaign were taking place in major UK cities including London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Hundreds gathered in London’s Hyde Park, sitting on the grass and listening to speakers, while another group marched from south London, near the US Embassy, to Parliament. “We are all here today because we know that black lives matter. We are all here today because we know that black is beautiful,” Imarn Ayton, one of the protest organisers, told the crowd in Hyde Park. “And we are all here today because we know that it is time to burn down institutional racism.” The largely youthful crowds in London were smaller – and more socially distanced – than those seen in the first two weeks after Floyd’s death. Since then the protest movement has become more geographically widespread, with hundreds of demonstrations held in towns, cities and neighbourhoods across the UK Jeremy Mukel, 33, originally from New York, said he was encouraged by the number of white people among the protesters in London. “I think people are becoming a lot more aware,” he said. Hundreds attended a socially distanced Say No to Racism rally in Glasgow’s George Square, where earlier this week members of the far right attacked a refugee-rights gathering. In Edinburgh, protesters including Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh called for the removal of a statue of Henry Dundas from its column in the city’s St Andrew Square. The late 18th-century Scottish politician was responsible for delaying Britain’s abolition of the slave trade by 15 years until 1807. During that time, more than half a million enslaved Africans were trafficked across the Atlantic. Hundreds of thousands of people have held mostly peaceful protests across Britain since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, urging the UK to confront its own history of imperialism and racial inequality. After some protesters scuffled with police and defaced a statue of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill in London, and demonstrators in Bristol toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston, counterprotesters rallied last week with the stated aim of protecting monuments. Hundreds of soccer hooligans and far-right activists clashed June 13 with police near the Churchill statue in London, which had been boarded up for protection. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced he is setting up a commission to look at what more can be done to eliminate racial injustice, but opponents accuse the Conservative government of opting for talk rather than action. Fresh world protests against racism and police violence Protests were also being held on Saturday in France. Many protesters congregated in the central Place de la Republique. Some carried a placard bearing the words “Justice For Ibo”, a reference to Ibrahima Bah, 22, who died in an October motorbike crash in the Paris suburbs of Villiers-le-Bel wile allegedly trying to escape a police check. Bah’s family blames the police for his death. The protesters marched to the former home of Lamine Dieng, a 25-year-old Franco-Senegalese man arrested in 2007 who died in a police van. A separate demonstration in support of undocumented workers planned to join up with the anti-racism march. Last week, it emerged that the French government agreed to pay 145,000 euros (US$162,000) to Dieng’s relatives after protracted legal wrangling. Others linked the protest with the case of George Floyd, an African American man whose death in the US city of Minneapolis galvanised protesters around the globe to rally against racism and police brutality. “It’s a reality we hear that there are people currently who are killed by the police. George Floyd was the hair that broke the camel’s back in the United States, but it’s not just George Floyd,” said demonstrator Lylia Boukerrouche. “In France, though it’s different, it’s a similar situation. It was a colonial state, and we see that today police violence occurs against blacks and Arabs, the descendants of immigrants,” Boukerrouche added. UN condemns police brutality, systemic racism – without naming US Demonstrations have erupted across the globe decrying racism and police brutality after the brutal death in the United States last month of Black American George Floyd. In Paris, both of Saturday’s protests were authorised by French authorities, who have been exercising caution over protests in recent weeks as the country emerges from coronavirus restrictions. Other protests on Saturday in the French capital have, however, been banned, including an anti-racism demonstration near the US Embassy by the Black African Defence League, and another protest linked to recent violence involving Chechens in the French city of Dijon. A small group of activists staged a flash protest on Saturday outside the French Health Ministry in support of state medical workers, who are demanding higher pay and more hospital staff after France’s once-renowned health care system struggled to cope with the virus crisis following years of cost cuts. The protesters sprayed red paint on the ministry building, symbolising blood, and on a mock medal.