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Angry protest against the measures of the crown: it is difficult to imagine in Spain, Italy and France. Even opponents of the government remember the devastating images of spring all too clearly. An overview of the ARD correspondents.
Spain: a pop star asks for demos
The horror of the pandemic is much more present in Spain than in Germany. Almost all Spaniards know someone who is seriously ill with Covid-19 or who has died in connection with the virus. Therefore, only a few doubt the government’s crown policy, although the state’s requirements were as strict as in almost no other country in Europe. In spring, there was a curfew for about two months: people were practically only allowed to leave their apartments to go to work or to go shopping.
A maximum of 2,000 to 3,000 people attended isolated demonstrations against the mask requirement in Madrid. Politically, the participants belong to the spectrum of the right, and the parties from the right to the far right do not make criticism of the Crown measures one of their themes. The main politicians of these parties wear masks in public and attack the government at most because they accuse it of the large number of victims and have deemed a more consistent crown policy necessary.
Spain also has prominent Corona skeptics, for example pop singer Miguel Bosé. Occasionally he calls demonstrations against Corona’s requirements through social media, which he often doesn’t even show up to. It should be noted: Bosé’s own mother died in the spring of the consequences of a Covid 19 disease.
The protests in Germany have caused head shakes in the Spanish media in recent weeks. The newspapers wrote about the “March of the deniers” or the “Irresponsibility in Berlin”. And Spanish journalists are always in awe of the makeup of the demonstration participants: that families, conspiracy theorists, critics of the left-wing system and neo-Nazis take to the streets together.
Oliver Neuroth, ARD-Studio Madrid
Italy: backing the government
Crowds protesting against the Crown’s measures are trying to storm Parliament, that would be unthinkable in Italy at this time. There are hardly any large demonstrations against the mask requirement or quarantine regulations, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte still gets relatively good approval ratings for his policy. This could all be because many Italians still clearly remember the images of spring: coffins that were stored in churches, military vehicles that had to transport the dead from Bergamo in northern Italy to other cities because the crematorium was overloaded.
In a European comparison, Italy was hit particularly hard by the spring pandemic, and Italians were barely allowed out of their apartments for months. The fear that this so-called blockade could be repeated should also contribute to the fact that there is comparatively little resistance to the government’s measures. However, this does not mean that everyone complies with the mask requirement on local public transport or in restaurants or that they support the government’s crown measures at all.
Opposition leader Matteo Salvini of the right-wing League is apparently trying to win over these people by repeatedly showing no protection for the mouth and nose, not maintaining safety distances and advocating further relaxation of the crown’s rules. At the same time, however, he also repeatedly points out the danger of the virus and asks people to act carefully.
And there are also real crown deniers in Italy: an extreme example is the mayor of Sutri, a city in central Italy who has criticized the government’s hygiene measures from the start: he has now banned oral and nasal protection in the municipal area. Use where not required by law. The official reason: anti-terrorism measures. Only thieves and terrorists covered their faces, the mayor said.
Lisa Weiß, ARD Studio Roma
France: protest almost exclusively online
There was extensive coverage in the French media of the Berlin demonstration by opponents of the mask, not without some astonishment on the part of the Germans, who were otherwise less willing to protest. In Paris there was also a call to protest against the crown protection measures on Saturday. But not tens of thousands came, only a few hundred.
Opponents of the mask also exist in France. But the movement is poorly organized, there are no known or even recognized spokespersons. The protest takes place almost exclusively on the Internet. For example, in the Facebook group against the mask requirement. This is where conspiracy theorists, who see everything as a plot by the pharmaceutical industry or politicians to establish a dictatorship, anti-vaccine activists, right-wing radicals, and extreme environmentalists are voiced. But the group doesn’t even have ten thousand members, ridiculously few for France, which is otherwise so ready to protest. The yellow vests managed to mobilize millions through Facebook.
A vast majority of French people support the mask requirement, which now applies in Paris and many other cities, including outdoors. That has to do with the fact that France was hit much harder by the epidemic than Germany in the spring and intensive care units were overloaded. At the time, the government, knowing full well that there were no masks available, declared that mouth and nose protection was pointless. This is still presented to you today as a conscious lie. Also from the right wing. Unlike the AfD in Germany, Marine Le Pen, head of the national assembly, has always called for mandatory masks and more stringent protective measures against the crown.
Martin Bohne, ARD-Studio Paris
