Thousands join pro-marriage march in Warsaw as president sends message of support

Thousands of people yesterday took part in the annual March of Life and Family in Warsaw, which this year was devoted to supporting the institution of marriage. President Andrzej Duda addressed a message of support to the participants and organisers.

“Contemporary cultural models ever more often portray marriage as a nonbinding and temporary agreement, so during this year’s march we want to remember the value of marriage,” said the main organiser, Paweł Ozdoba, adding that the march also emphasised that “marriage is a union of one woman and one man”.

“Life, marriage and family…are fundamental values ​​for our society, in some sense written into the genetic code of our nation,” he told news weekly Do Rzeczy. “It is worth fighting for marriage, trying to maintain it.”

Marchers held up banners saying “Have patience, fight for love” and “More children! Fewer divorces!”, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP). Other signs expressed opposition to abortion, and participants carried a 100-metre-long Polish flag.

As the procession passed the presidential palace, a large screen showed Duda thanking those taking part for creating a “joyful community” and for “your attachment to the noblest ideals, for the conviction that a strong family is the prosperity of our homeland”.

Many of the participants were families with children. However, some more extreme elements were also visible, including people wearing the logos of the “Soldiers of Christ” (Żolnierze Chrystusa), a group founded to protect “Europe from an invasion of the followers of Islam”.

One group held up a banner identifying themselves as members of Third Position (Trzecia Droga), a radical-right group whose website lionises historical fascist figures such as Belgian Nazi collaborator Léon Degrelle and José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange party in 1930s Spain.

The March of Life and Family, which was first held in 2006, is holding similar parades in over 100 other municipalities around Poland. Ozdoba’s organisation, the Centre for Life and Family, estimated that over 10,000 people yesterday joined the event in Warsaw alone.

Main image credit: Kuba Atys / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Daniel Tilles

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.