President Nawrocki Walks at Nationalist March as Poland Faces Security and Political Rift

WARSAW, Poland — Polish President Karol Nawrocki joined hundreds of thousands of right-wing demonstrators on Wednesday, waving red-and-white national flags and chanting slogans at an annual march marking the country’s Independence Day.

The demonstration, organized by nationalist groups, came amid growing concern over violent extremism after a deadly shooting in Krakow’s tourist-heavy southern district on Saturday. Authorities said the attack was carried out by a far-right gunman.

Vociferous speeches ahead of the march drew on historic and Christian themes and evoked Poland’s past subjugation under Germany and the Soviet Union. One speaker denounced “toxic ideologies” circulating online, and a message of patriotism echoed through the crowd.

As the march got underway, Nawrocki — a staunch conservative and nationalist — joined from the back of the procession. He did not address the full crowd. Horns blared, voices shouted, and orange flares released smoke under cloudy skies.

The Polish news agency PAP cited Jarosław Misztal, director of the Warsaw Security Center, as saying about 250,000 people took part, with no major incidents, while march organizers put turnout at half a million or more.

The president instead delivered remarks earlier at an official commemoration at Pilsudski Square, where he laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He addressed security concerns and called for unity.

“Poland will be a solid, stable, and predictable ally when it comes to security, and Polish political elites will build our security not with political disputes in mind, but for the safety of Polish women and men,” Nawrocki said.

His chief political rival, pro-European Prime Minister Donald Tusk, attended a separate rally in the city of Szczecin, near the German border.

“Today, on November 11th, we were supposed to reach out to one another. Mr. President, we were meant to meet,” Tusk said in comments posted on his X account, appealing for unity between the country’s top two political leaders.

Referring to Nawrocki, he later wrote that “on this one day, he could have tried to unite Poles rather than divide them. What a shame.”

Poland has been increasingly divided in recent weeks, though it has remained largely united in grief over the Krakow shooting. Rival political factions have clashed over appointments to the Constitutional Court.

The crowds gathered as Poland marked the 108th anniversary of its restored independence after more than a century of being partitioned and ruled by Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary.

The date of Nov. 11 carries powerful weight for a nation where the trauma of lost national sovereignty endures. The annual march organized by nationalist groups has sometimes been marred by violent clashes in past years.

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