(Reuters) – Tens of thousands of protesters marched through cities in northwestern Europe on Saturday against restrictions to contain the coronavirus imposed amid a spike in infections.
Last month, Austria became the first country in Western Europe to reimpose a lockdown, which is expected to last 20 days, and said it would make vaccination mandatory starting in February.
Some of the more than 40,000 protesters in Vienna carried placards saying: “I will decide for myself”, “Make Austria Big Again” and “New Elections” – a nod to the political turmoil that has spawned three chancellors in two months.
In the city of Utrecht, central Netherlands, thousands of people demonstrated against the restrictions that began last weekend.
In Germany’s financial capital, Frankfurt, police dispersed a protest by hundreds of people for not wearing masks or maintaining social distance, using truncheons and pepper spray, after officers were attacked by a group of protesters.
And in Berlin, where a new government is due to take office in a few days, small groups gathered to protest after a larger demonstration was banned.
(Reporting by Eva Plevier and Hilde Verweij ina Holanda, Francois Murphy and Lisi Niesner in Vienna, Emma Thomasson in Berlin; text by Kevin Liffey)
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