Despite the rain, thousands of demonstrators – families, students, activists and elderly people alike – gathered at 1 p.m. at Mont des Arts. “The brown plague is back, don’t let yourself be contaminated”, “Never again”, displayed signs.
Around 1:30 p.m., the procession set off to the sound of drums and slogans towards Congress Square. After passing through Rue de la Loi, the crowd is expected around 3:30 p.m. at Place du Luxembourg, where concerts and speeches are planned.
Some 1,200 anti-fascist activists march in Brussels
“Many of us were shocked by the result of the elections of June 9, showing a breakthrough of the far right on a European scale. We are therefore gathered today to unite against the far right – whose project is profoundly unequal, racist and exclusionary”, underlined one of the spokespersons of the CAB, Sixtine Van Outryve.
To signify that the rise of the far-right “is not inevitable”, this is therefore the objective of this mobilization which aims to “tackle it through the construction of a real, social, ecological alternative , and democratic – the only one capable of truly responding to the major challenges of today and tomorrow.”
The coordination spokesperson points to a “worrying” strategy of trivializing far-right speeches. “Faced with this normalization of racist and fascist remarks by our politicians, let us loudly recall the ‘never again’, which seemed so obvious at the end of the fascism regimes of the last century.”
The anti-fascist coordination of Belgium is a coalition bringing together around twenty social movements and organizations – such as the young FGTB, the Anti-fascist Front of Liège, the MOC Brussels, and the Mrax.
The Vlaams Belang building in Brussels vandalized
The Vlaams Belang building was vandalized during the “social and anti-fascist” demonstration organized on Sunday afternoon in Brussels and bringing together several thousand people.
Demonstrators placed anarchist tags on the entrance to the building, located on Place Madou, and smoke bombs were lit and thrown against the facade. Garbage containers were also dumped in front of the offices of the Belgian far-right party.
