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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Poland’s right-wing opposition has criticised the city of Lublin for hosting an Africa Day Festival this week and for welcoming growing numbers of African students. The city’s deputy mayor has hit back, accusing them of spreading “lies, manipulation and fear”.
On Saturday, Krzysztof Bosak, one of the leaders of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) group, shared a video originally posted by the organisers of Africa Day Festival.
“Residents of Lublin, what is wrong with you that you elect authorities who populate your beautiful city with foreigners?” wrote Bosak, who also serves as a deputy speaker of parliament.
Mieszkańcy Lublina, co z Wami jest nie tak, że wybieracie władze, które zasiedlają Wasze piękne miasto cudzoziemcami? https://t.co/EMYuQvcHXP
— Krzysztof Bosak 🇵🇱 (@krzysztofbosak) May 23, 2026
News of the Africa Day celebration, which is due to take place in Lublin, a city of 330,000 in eastern Poland, on 29 and 30 May and is described as a “celebration of diversity, intercultural dialogue and international cooperation”, quickly spread on social media.
Meanwhile, an interview with Wiktoria Herun, Lublin’s deputy director for academic affairs and economic promotion, began to be widely shared. In the podcast, which was originally published in January, she celebrated the city’s success in attracting foreign students.
Previously, they came “mostly from post-Soviet countries”, said Herun. “The last six years have been primarily Africa – Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa – but recently also Thailand and Saudi Arabia.”
“Students used to come alone,” she added. “Now, students from places like Africa, India and Bangladesh come with their families. They come with their husbands, wives and children, so it’s no longer just about helping them find a place in a dorm, but also a whole apartment.”
The issue was critically commented on by leading figures from both Confederation and the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s main opposition party. They warned that student visas can be a backdoor for migrants to gain entry to Poland.
“Neither Lublin nor any other city in Poland needs a programme for the mass importation of migrants from Africa along with their families,” wrote Przemysław Czarnek, a deputy leader of PiS and its prime ministerial candidate for next year’s parliamentary elections.
“Poles have the right to ask: who gave a mandate to alter the city’s social structure without the residents’ consent? Western Europe has already shown what mass immigration leads to: a rise in crime, tensions, and a loss of safety.”
Lublin ani żadne inne miasto w Polsce nie potrzebuje programu masowego sprowadzania migrantów z Afryki razem z rodzinami. Tym bardziej szokuje fakt, że koordynuje to Ukrainka zatrudniona przez samorząd.
Polacy mają prawo pytać: kto dał mandat do zmieniania struktury społecznej… https://t.co/mBUfWpnAAd
— Przemysław Czarnek (@CzarnekP) May 26, 2026
As is the case in most large cities in Poland, the municipal authorities in Lublin are associated with Poland’s more liberal ruling coalition. The city’s mayor, Krzysztof Żak, is from Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s centrist Civic Coalition (KO) party.
Following the outcry over foreign students, deputy mayor Tomasz Fulara held a joint press conference on Monday alongside rectors from four universities in Lublin, at which they addressed what Fulara called the “lies, manipulation and politics of fear”.
“Let me be clear: there is no question of mass migration to Lublin,” said Fulara. He noted that, of 60,000 students in Lublin, around 9,000 are from abroad, including 2,000 from African countries. “That translates to just 0.7% of Lublin’s total population.”
At the conference, the officials pointed to data showing that international students spend nearly 480 million zloty (€113 million) annually in Lublin. They noted that 95% of African students return to their home countries after graduating, while most of the rest move to western Europe, reports Radio Zet.
Beata Piskorska, vice rector at the Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), where Czarnek is a professor of law, said that they are “very proud that students of different nationalities and denominations – and I say this as a representative of a Catholic university – have an open path to” studying in the city.
Michał Krawczyk, a KO member of parliament from Lublin, also condemned the right-wing critics of the Africa Day Festival. “What kind of mindset does it take to hate other people so much?!” he wrote on social media.
“These attacks are undermining the academic and international character of our city. International students and visitors build our economic development, while right-wing hate only builds a wall of hatred. You are pathetic.”
An Islamic group wants to establish a new prayer centre in Kraków for the growing local Muslim community
The idea has drawn concern from some local residents and protests from right-wing groups, who say Poland should avoid "the mistakes of western Europe" https://t.co/ClCwusyhhp
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 23, 2026
Over the last decade or so, Poland has seen an unprecedented rise in immigration, including a boom in foreign-student numbers. However, a large part of those increases came when PiS ruled Poland from 2015 to the end of 2023 (with Czarnek serving as higher education minister from 2020 to 2023).
For six years running from 2017 to 2022, Poland issued the EU’s highest number of first residence permits to immigrants from outside the bloc. The number of foreign students rose from around 57,000 in 2015 to 107,000 in 2023.
The majority of those immigrants and students have come from Poland’s eastern European neighbours, particularly Ukraine. Of the 108,200 foreign students in Poland in the 2022/23 academic year, 48,700 were Ukrainians.
The next largest groups were from Belarus (12,000), Turkey (3,800), Zimbabwe (3,600), India (2,700), Azerbaijan (2,500), Uzbekistan (2,100), China (1,800), Kazakhstan (1,700) and Nigeria (1,600).
The number of foreign students in Poland has exceeded 100,000 for the first time.
The figure, now 105,400, has tripled in the last decade and almost 9% of all students in Poland are now from abroad https://t.co/XPYL0ExCh7
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) July 20, 2023
Tusk’s coalition came to power in 2023 following an election campaign in which it accused PiS of overseeing uncontrolled mass immigration and pledged to tighten the system. Since taking office, the new government has toughened rules on migration, including access to student visas.
As a result, the number of residence permits being issued has fallen while growth in foreign-student numbers has slowed over the last two years.
However, last month, higher education minister Marcin Kulasek announced that Poland is now taking steps to attract more international students, with Turkey, South Korea, Vietnam and Uzbekistan among the countries being targeted.
Poland is taking steps to attract more foreign students as universities face lower enrollment due to demographic decline.
Turkey, South Korea, Vietnam and Uzbekistan are among the countries with which the government is cultivating stronger academic ties https://t.co/r878KqS5OV
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 25, 2026
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Akademia Nauk Stosowanych Wincentego Pola w Lublinie
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
