Europe
Mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 should not be introduced, Putin says
Inoculation against the coronavirus infection should not be compulsory, yet people themselves should realize the necessity of these jabs, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a video conference on Wednesday.
During the video conference on the economy, he noted that there are different opinions on this topic, including on introducing a mandatory vaccination for the entire population or for workers in certain sectors who come into contact with a large number of people due to their occupation, for example, those working in the retail industry, catering, transportation, medical, educational, social institutions and so on.
"In my opinion, it is counterproductive and unnecessary to introduce mandatory vaccinations," the head of state said.
According to him, "people should realize this necessity on their own" and comprehend that without a shot they "may face a very serious and even deadly danger," particularly elderly people.
Putin is confident in the reliability and safety of the Russian coronavirus vaccines and believes that the country has created all the conditions for vaccination.
"I would like to emphasize once again and to appeal to all our citizens: think carefully, keep in mind that the Russian vaccine - the practice has already shown that millions [of people] have used it - is currently the most reliable and the safest," Putin said at a meeting on economic issues.
"All conditions for vaccination have been created in our country," the president noted.
Turkish teams on mission to persuade the vaccine-reluctant
In the medieval Turkish city of Mardin, Medine Ereli calls out to a team of medical workers walking along the town’s cobblestoned main street. Her 59-year old husband refuses to get vaccinated, she tells the doctor and nurse, before leading them to Enver Ereli, who’s on the job as a municipal sanitation worker.
The masked health care duo is part of Turkey’s “vaccination persuasion” teams, a recent initiative that aims to promote inoculation against the coronavirus among the country’s most vulnerable population.
Their job is to persuade people who fall in the age groups eligible for the vaccine, but who have so far been reluctant to get their shots.
At the start of the inoculation program, some elderly people mistrusted the vaccine amid rumors that it was part of a plot to kill off the older population, said Dr. Aysegul Duyan, who is out on the road with nurse Meltem Gulcan.
Read:EU takes on AstraZeneca in court over vaccine deliveries
“They soon saw that that was not the case,” she said. “Nowadays, they are mostly worried due to rumors that it could cause paralysis.”
The mobile door-to-door units — equipped with coolers carrying vaccine vials — have been operational in several Turkish provinces since April. At local health offices, more government workers reach people by phone in an attempt to change their minds.
Health Minister Fahrettin Koca says 84% of the population age 65 and above who are eligible to be vaccinated have so far received COVID-19 shots. The government aims to bring that figure above 90%.
In Mardin, the team talked Ereli into getting his shot and the nurse administered the first jab while he sat down on a nearby ledge.
“I was afraid of getting sick and of being paralyzed. But then the medical teams told me it was for my benefit and I believed them and got vaccinated,” Ereli said.
It was the team’s first successful effort of the day as an Associated Press camera accompanied them around Mardin, a culturally and historically diverse region in Turkey’s south, overlooking Mesopotamia and bordering Syria.
In Mardin alone, their efforts have resulted in the vaccination of nearly 8,000 people, according to the provincial health director.
“Village by village, hamlet by hamlet, wherever they are, we went and talked to them either face to face or by phone and persuaded them,” Dr. Saffet Yavuz said.
Sare Oncel, a 75-year-old resident of the village of Gokce, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Mardin was also among those nudged into getting the shot.
Read:Eyeing variant, France mulls tighter limits for UK tourists
“Everyone kept telling me that I’d be paralyzed and die if I got the vaccine. So I refused and didn’t get it,” she said. “But the government sent us the doctors and they talked us into it and I got vaccinated.”
Turkey has fully vaccinated around 14% of its population of 83 million. Around 16 million people have received their first jab.
Last week, the number of daily COVID-19 infections in Turkey dropped to below 10,000 for the first time since March 1, after reaching a record-high of more than 63,000 daily cases in mid-April.
On Tuesday, the Health Ministry posted 9,375 new cases and 175 deaths in the past 24 hours. The total death toll in the country stands at 46,621, with more than 5.2 million infections since the start of the outbreak.
EU takes on AstraZeneca in court over vaccine deliveries
The European Union took on vaccine producer AstraZeneca in a Brussels court on Wednesday with the urgent demand that the company needs to make an immediate delivery of COVID-19 shots the bloc insists were already due.
AstraZeneca’s contract signed with the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, on behalf of member states foresaw an initial 300 million doses for distribution among all 27 countries, with an option for a further 100 million. The doses were expected to be delivered throughout 2021. But only 30 million were sent during the first quarter.
Deliveries have increased slightly since then but, according to the European Commission, the company is set to provide only 70 million doses in the second quarter. It had promised 180 million.
EU lawyer Rafael Jafferali told the court that the company now expects to deliver the total number of doses by the end of December, but he added that “with a six-month delay, it’s obviously a failure.”
Read: Malawi destroys 20,000 expired doses of AstraZeneca vaccine
His main argument is that AstraZeneca should have used production sites in the bloc and the U.K. for EU supplies as part of a “best reasonable effort” clause in the contract. He said that 50 million doses that should have been delivered to the EU went to third countries instead, “in violation” of their contract.
Jafferali has said that the company should use all four plants listed in their contract for deliveries to the EU.
He also accused the company of misleading the European Commission by providing data lacking clarity on the delivery delays.
“The information provided by AstraZeneca did not allow us to fully understand the situation before mid-March 2021,” he said.
The EU has insisted its gripes with the company are about deliveries only and has repeatedly said that it has no problems with the safety or quality of the vaccine itself. The shots have been approved by the European Medicines Agency, the EU’s drug regulator.
While the bloc insists AstraZeneca has breached its contractual obligations, the company says it has fully complied with the agreement, arguing that vaccines are difficult to manufacture and it made its best effort to deliver on time.
Lawyers for the company will address the court later Wednesday.
As part of an advanced purchase agreement with vaccine companies, the EU said it invested 2.7 billion euros ($3.8 billion), including 336 million ($408 million), to finance the production of AstraZeneca’s serum at four factories.
The long-standing dispute drew media attention for weeks earlier this year amid a deadly surge of coronavirus infections in Europe, when delays in vaccine production and deliveries hampered the EU’s vaccination campaign.
Cheaper and easier to use than rival shots from Pfizer-BioNTech, the AstraZeneca vaccine developed with Oxford University was a pillar of the EU’s vaccine rollout. But the EU’s partnership with the firm quickly deteriorated amid accusations it favored its relationship with British authorities.
While the U.K. made quick progress in its vaccination campaign thanks to the AstraZeneca shots, the EU faced embarrassing complaints and criticism for its slow start.
Concerns over the pace of the rollout across the EU grew after AstraZeneca said it couldn’t supply EU members with as many doses as originally anticipated because of production capacity limits.
Read:Indonesia suspends AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine batch after death
The health situation has dramatically improved in Europe in recent weeks, with the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths on a sharp downward trend as vaccination has picked up. About 300 million doses of vaccine have been delivered in Europe — a region with around 450 million inhabitants, with about 245 million already administered.
About 46% of the EU population have had at least one dose.
In total, the European Commission has secured more than 2.5 billion of vaccine doses with various manufacturers. It recently sealed another major order with Pfizer and BioNTech through 2023 for an additional 1.8 billion doses of their COVID-19 shot to share between the bloc’s countries.
Following Wednesday’s hearing, a second one is slated for Friday, with a judgment to be delivered at a date to be announced. In addition to the emergency action, the European Commission has launched a claim on the merits of the case for damages for which a hearing hasn’t yet been set by the court.
UK Black activist critical in hospital after shooting
An activist who has played a leading role in anti-racism demonstrations in Britain was in critical condition in a London hospital on Monday after being shot.
The Taking the Initiative Party said Sasha Johnson, who played a leading role in Black Lives Matter protests last year, was shot in the head on Sunday. Police and a friend said it did not appear to be a targeted attack, though the party said Johnson had received “numerous death threats” related to her activism.
The party said Johnson was “a strong, powerful voice for our people and our community.”
The Metropolitan Police force said officers were called to reports of gunshots in the Peckham area of the city just before 3 a.m. on Sunday. Police said the shooting took place near a house where a party was taking place.
The police statement said a 27-year-old woman was in a hospital in critical condition after being shot. It did not identify her, but said “there is nothing to suggest it was a targeted attack or that the woman had received any credible threats against her before this incident.”
Detectives have appealed for witnesses and have not made any arrests.
A friend, Imarn Ayton, said she did not believe Johnson was the intended target.
“As far as we are aware, she was at a party,” she told the BBC. “There was a rival gang that may have heard about someone being in that party that they didn’t feel quite comfortable with or trusted and so they resorted to driving past and shooting into the garden, and one of those shots obviously hit Sasha Johnson.
“But I don’t believe she was the intended victim.”
Like other countries, Britain has faced an uncomfortable reckoning with race since the death of George Floyd, a Black American, at the knee of a U.S. policeman in May 2020 sparked anti-racism protests around the world.
Large crowds at Black Lives Matter protests across the U.K. called on the government and institutions to face up to the legacy of the British Empire and the country’s extensive profits from the slave trade. Johnson was a speaker at rallies last summer and is a leader of the newly founded, Black-led Taking the Initiative Party.
Italy probes cable car crash as lone child survivor recovers
Italy’s transport minister was heading Monday to the scene of a cable car disaster that killed 14 people when the lead cable apparently snapped and the cabin careened back down the mountain until it pulled off the line and crashed to the ground.
The lone survivor of Sunday’s horrific incident, a 5-year-old Israeli boy living in Italy, remained hospitalized in Turin Monday with multiple broken bones.
The Israeli foreign ministry identified him as Eitan Biran. His parents, younger brother and two great-grandparents were among the dead, the ministry said, correcting an earlier statement that had included Eitan among the victims.
Italian media identified all the other victims as residents of Italy.
The disaster, in one of the most picturesque spots in northern Italy — the Mottarone mountaintop overlooking Lake Maggiore and other lakes near Switzerland — raised questions anew about the quality and safety of Italy’s transport infrastructure.
Transport Minister Enrico Giovannini announced a commission of inquiry had already been formed to investigate the “technical and organizational causes” of the accident, while prosecutors will focus on any criminal blame. Giovannini was heading to the site Monday along with the civil protection chief to inspect the damage.
The transport ministry said a preliminary check of the cable line’s safety and maintenance record show that the whole lift structure underwent a renovation in August 2016, and that a maintenance check was performed in 2017.
Late last year, inspections were performed on the cables themselves, including magnetic inspections on the primary cables of the lift: the cable that pulls the cabin up the mountain, the support cable that holds the car and the rescue cables. In December another visual check was performed, the ministry said.
Read: Italian cable car plunges to the ground, killing at least 14
The mayor of Stresa, Marcella Severino, quoted witnesses as saying they heard a “loud hiss,” apparently when the lead cable snapped. She said the cabin reeled back down the line until it apparently hit a pylon and then plummeted to the ground. It rolled over two or three times before crashing into trees, she said.
It wasn’t immediately clear why a brake had not engaged.
Some of the bodies were thrown from the car and were found amid the trees, she said.
The funicular line is popular with tourists and locals alike to scale Mottarone, which reaches a height of 1,491 meters (4,900 feet) and overlooks several picturesque lakes and the surrounding Alps of Italy’s Piedmont region.
The mountain hosts a small amusement park, Alpyland, that has a children’s rollercoaster, and the area also has mountain bike paths and hiking trails.
It only reopened a few weeks ago after Italy’s wintertime coronavirus lockdowns lifted, and officials hypothesized that families were taking advantage of a sunny Sunday to visit the peak and take in the view.
The Israeli foreign ministry identified the five Israelis killed as Eitan’s parents, Amit Biran and Tal Peleg-Biran, an Israeli-born couple studying and working in Pavia. Biran’s Facebook page identifies him as a medical student at the University of Pavia.
Their 2-year-old son, Tom Biran, was killed at the scene, as were Peleg-Biran’s grandparents, Barbara and Yitzhak Cohen. The ministry said they had arrived in Italy on May 19 to visit their granddaughter and great-grandchildren.
Amit Biran’s sister, Aya, was not involved in the crash and was at the bedside of Eitan at Turin’s Regina Margherita hospital, the foreign ministry said, adding that other family members were flying to Italy from Israel to join her.
The Israeli embassy was working to help repatriate the bodies to Israel, it said.
Eyeing variant, France mulls tighter limits for UK tourists
France may introduce stricter coronavirus restrictions for British visitors when tourism reopens this summer to prevent the spread of a worrying virus variant first detected in India and causing concern in Britain, authorities said Sunday.
The possibility of tighter restrictions for British tourists was raised Sunday by Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
The minister suggested that Britain could be put in a health category of its own, somewhere in between the strictest measures that France is imposing on visitors from India and 15 other countries, and more relaxed requirements being readied for visitors from the European Union and some other countries.
Without giving specifics, Le Drian said “health measures that are a bit stronger” could be applied for British tourists.
The minister indicated that the government in Paris is watching how the situation develops before making up its mind.
Read:Clinic helps long-haul patients in London’s “COVID triangle”
“We hope that the variant can be controlled in a country which experienced real failures during the pandemic,” he said.
“However, the arrival of the Indian variant and the increase of cases of Indian variant in the United Kingdom pose a problem and so we are vigilant about this (and) in contact with the British authorities,” he added.
“It won’t be the red treatment if we have to do it. It will be an intermediate treatment,” the minister said. “But it is not excluded — this springs to mind because of British tourists — that we have health measures that are a bit stronger.”
From Sunday, Germany already started requiring people arriving from the U.K. to go into quarantine for 14 days. The decision announced last Friday responded to the spread in Britain of the Indian variant.
Under the tighter rules, airlines and others will also only be able to transport German citizens and residents from Britain.
Clinic helps long-haul patients in London’s “COVID triangle”
Gary Miller drove a London taxi. Rohit Patel worked behind the till in a supermarket. Barry Bwalya was in customer service.
When the coronavirus tore through their London neighborhoods in early 2020, they all got sick. More than a year later, they are still struggling.
“It’s like a rollercoaster,” said Miller, a previously fit, gym-loving 57-year-old who is coping with leg and joint pain, headaches and breathlessness. “There are times that I see light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like I’m taking one step forward, and then all of a sudden — bang — I’m ill again and I take two steps back.”
Even as London looks to life after lockdown, thousands of people are still grappling with long-term physical and mental effects of the virus. Help is coming through “long COVID” clinics, where medics, patients — and Britain’s overstretched health system — are confronting the virus’s enduring effects.
Read:Sanofi-GSK reports success in virus vaccine, after setback
Plagues, fires, war — London has survived them all. But it has never had a year like this. The coronavirus has killed more than 15,000 Londoners and shaken the foundations of one of the world’s great cities. Amid a fast-moving mass vaccination campaign, The Associated Press looks at the pandemic’s impact on London’s people and institutions and asks what the future might hold.
At King George Hospital in the east London district of Ilford, respiratory consultant Adam Ainley began noticing last summer that some coronavirus patients who had been discharged were not getting better. They had a wide range of symptoms, including fatigue, muscle pain, breathlessness, headaches, anxiety and depression.
The hospital serves an area dubbed the “COVID triangle,” three outer London boroughs that have had some of Britain’s highest infection rates. It’s a multi-ethnic area, home to many Black and South Asian Londoners, groups that saw higher rates of serious COVID-19 illness and death than white Britons.
High rates of poverty, crowded housing and residents in frontline jobs — including medics, taxi drivers and retail workers — all helped the virus spread.
Ainley began drawing on the expertise of colleagues from multiple disciplines to treat what has been labeled “long COVID,” or long-haul COVID. His clinic was one of the first of 83 set up across England, backed by the state-funded National Health Service.
Ainley said it aims to offer “a one-stop approach” to a complex problem.
“We will try and address all the components of your illness,” he said. “When you get to the clinic you’ll see myself, you’ll see a physiotherapist, the occupational therapist, our clinical psychologist. I have access to other specialty members from cardiology, rheumatology, as I need to, based upon your symptoms.”
Some patients have even been given singing lessons as therapy.
There is no universal definition of long COVID, a term applied to a range of persistent post-viral symptoms. While most people recover from coronavirus infections within a few weeks, Britain’s statistics office says almost 14% still report symptoms 12 weeks later.
Ainley’s clinic has seen 700 patients, with another 120 on the waiting list. Their symptoms are often mental as well as physical. Psychologist Marc Kingsley said many experience memory loss and “brain fog,” as well as loneliness and low moods.
“Some of the people I’ve spoken to have survivor guilt,” Kingsley said. “They actually feel guilty about having survived where they saw people in front of them passing away.
Read:Britain yet to decide on Pfizer offer to vaccinate Olympians
“A lot of our patients say to us they don’t feel that they can just talk to friends and family,” he said. “They don’t want to upset people.”
As well as home visits from physiotherapists, Miller gets phone calls from a therapist where he can talk about the frustration he feels.
“It’s nice to talk to other people and get a load off my chest,” he said. “And to find out through her that there are people in the same boat as I am.”
The U.K., which has seen almost 128,000 coronavirus-related deaths, has recorded almost 4.5 million infections, so long COVID is likely to be a burden for years to come. But the clinics face competition for resources in a heath service facing a backlog of undiagnosed and untreated cancers and other ailments. Some long COVID sufferers say they can’t get referred to one of the specialist clinics.
The NHS has allocated 34 million pounds ($48 million) to the clinics, and chief executive Simon Stevens has promised more funds will be coming.
Britain was relatively quick to devote resources to long COVID, but it was still months before many patients received specialist help. The King George clinic is still treating patients who fell sick in spring 2020. Now it is starting to see those infected during Britain’s even bigger winter outbreak.
“The first wave, I feel gutted for,” said physiotherapist Jane Clark. “It is lovely to see them improve so quickly and you think, ‘I just wish I was aware of you earlier.’”
Ainley says “there’s no gold standard or evidence-based treatment yet for long COVID,” but he’s encouraged to see many patients getting better.
“I’ve followed some of their journeys from their first admission,” he said. “People admitted last April we have now discharged from our clinic because now they’re back to functioning in life. We’ve had people attend weddings ... people reunited with their families ... people who were essentially housebound, who are now going out.”
Progress can feel agonizingly slow. Bwayla, 66, struggles with his breath and his memory and relies on around-the-clock support from his wife, Barbara.
“I never thought I would walk, but now at least I can walk with a stick,” he said. “But at times I get so frustrated. … I love my granddaughter, but I can’t even play with her.”
Read:Palestinian march in Paris defies ban, is met by tear gas
Miller, Bwalya and Patel all know many people — workmates, relatives, friends -- who became ill with COVID-19, and some who died.
“Sometimes it makes you wonder, how come I survived and a lot of people couldn’t?” Patel said.
The 62-year-old supermarket cashier spent three months in King George Hospital with the virus last year, including six weeks in an induced coma.
Almost a year after being discharged, he still is short of breath and suffers from numbness in his feet. But he can make a cup of tea, and he’s able to walk slowly around the block. He hopes to return to work next month.
“It’s been a long haul, but I think I’m getting there,” Patel said, defiantly optimistic. “I am seeing this as a second life.”
Sanofi-GSK reports success in virus vaccine, after setback
Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline’s potential COVID-19 vaccine triggered strong immune responses in all adult age groups in preliminary trials, boosting optimism the shot may join the fight against the pandemic this year.
After two doses of the vaccine candidate, participants showed neutralizing antibodies in line with those found in people who had recovered from the disease, according to results of the Phase 2 trial released Monday. The drugmakers said they plan to begin late-stage trials and production in the coming weeks and hope to win regulatory approval for the vaccine before the end of 2021.
Read: Indonesia suspends AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine batch after death
Regulators have already authorized a number of COVID-19 vaccines, though experts say more are needed as public health authorities around the world race to vaccinate their residents amid a pandemic that has already killed more than 3.3 million people and caused economic havoc.
The Sanofi-GSK vaccine was an important part of the European Union’s vaccination strategy, and had notably been championed by French President Emmanuel Macron’s government. But researchers had to reformulate it after early testing produced an inadequate immune response in older people.
The Sanofi-GSK candidate joins about a dozen vaccines now undergoing late-stage trials. The companies plan to produce up to 1 billion doses annually, and they have signed agreements to supply the U.S., Canada and developing countries, too. Public health experts say several vaccines will be needed to end the pandemic, because of the challenges in rapidly producing and distributing enough doses to vaccinate billions of people.
“We know multiple vaccines will be needed, especially as variants continue to emerge and the need for effective and booster vaccines, which can be stored at normal temperatures increases,” said Thomas Triomphe, head of Sanofi’s vaccines unit.
Read:India to begin Covaxin vaccine trials for children
The results released Monday were from a Phase 2 trial involving 722 volunteers aged 18 to 95 who were recruited in the U.S. and Honduras.
The late-stage trial will involve about 37,000 participants from countries around the world, the companies said.
Britain yet to decide on Pfizer offer to vaccinate Olympians
The British government is still deciding whether to accept an offer from Pfizer to fast-track Olympic and Paralympic athletes for coronavirus vaccines.
Jabs are only being given to Britons aged 38 or older - though this will be extended to those over 35 from next week - with younger people only getting inoculated if they have an underlying health condition.
It s sensitive because the philosophy has been based on age and that s been proved to be the right thing, British Sports Minister Nigel Huddleston said. The biggest indicator is age is the biggest factor and of course Pfizer have offered for the Olympics and we ve asked them about that.
Pfizer, which developed a vaccine with BioNTech, said earlier this month said that it would donate doses to inoculate athletes and officials preparing for the Tokyo games with the rescheduled Olympics due to open on July 23.
While the Olympics begin in less than 10 weeks, Britain has a policy of delaying the second dose by up to 12 weeks to free up vaccines for more people. Britain announced Sunday that more than 20 million people have now received both doses. The two shots of the Pfizer vaccines were intended to be given three to four weeks apart.
The government s vaccine rollout has been excellent and, coupled with the IOC s donation of the Pfizer vaccine for athletes, means we are hopeful of getting all athletes vaccinated before they travel to Tokyo, British Olympic Association chairman Hugh Robertson said. It is important for this to happen soon, to assure our hosts in Tokyo that we are doing all we can to keep their population safe.
Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are among the European nations to have already offered vaccines to delegations headed to Tokyo.
Japan has been struggling to slow infections ahead of the games and expanded a coronavirus state of emergency from six areas, including Tokyo, to nine on Friday.
Palestinian march in Paris defies ban, is met by tear gas
French riot police fired tear gas and used water cannons Saturday in Paris as protesters supporting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip defied a ban on marching in the French capital.
Hundreds of people marched peacefully in other cities in France and elsewhere in Europe.
In Paris, protesters scattered and played cat-and-mouse with security forces in the city’s northern neighborhoods after their starting point for a planned march was blocked.
Paris police chief Didier Lallement had ordered 4,200 security forces into the streets and closed shops around the kick-off point for the march in a working-class neighborhood after an administrative court confirmed the ban due to fears of violence. Authorities noted that a banned July 2014 pro-Palestinian protest against an Israeli offensive in Gaza degenerated into violence and running battles with police to justify the order against Saturday’s march.
Organizers said they intended to “denounce the latest Israeli aggressions” and mark the fleeing of Palestinians after Israel declared independence in 1948.
“Stop Annexation. Palestine Will Vanquish,” read one poster in a small crowd facing off with police.
Protesters shifted from neighborhood to neighborhood as police closed in on them, sometimes with tear gas and water cannons. At one point, a fire set by protesters blocked a large street.
Anger against the Israeli offensive in Gaza drew protests elsewhere in Europe on Saturday, with thousands of people marching on the Israeli Embassy in London to protest Israel’s attacks. Those included an Israeli airstrike that blew up the 12-story building in Gaza that housed media outlets, including The Associated Press. Those inside were warned and fled the building.
Demonstrators chanting “Free Palestine!” marched through Hyde Park in London and gathered outside the embassy gates, watched by a large number of police. Organizers demanded that the British government stop its military and financial support to Israel.
Husam Zumlot, head of the Palestinian mission to the U.K., told the crowd that “this time is different.”
“This time we will not be denied any more. We are united. We have had enough of oppression,” he said.
In the Netherlands, a few hundred people in The Hague braved the cold and rain to listen to speeches and wave Palestinian flags. On a central square outside the Dutch national parliament building, protesters held up signs saying: “Free Palestine.”
On Friday evening, Dutch police briefly detained about 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the city of Utrecht who refused to end a demonstration that was banned because participants were not adhering to social distancing.
In France, some of the dozen marches permitted in other cities drew huge pro-Palestinian crowds that marched peacefully Saturday, notably in Strasbourg in the east and Marseille on the Mediterranean Sea.
Demonstrations were also held in several cities in Germany while hundreds gathered peacefully in Rome.
In Berlin, police broke up a pro-Palestinian protest, citing participants’ failure to comply with coronavirus distancing rules. Stones and bottles were thrown as officers moved to clear participants, the dpa news agency reported.
Anti-Israel protests earlier in the week drew condemnation, particularly a protest outside a synagogue in Gelsenkirchen. A video showed dozens of protesters waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and yelling expletives about Jews. On Friday, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said that “our democracy will not tolerate antisemitic demonstrations.”