What’s behind the latest outbreak of protests across Europe?

The ostensible trigger for the outbreak of riots across Europe over the weekend was protest against new anti-Covid measures ranging from lockdowns to mandatory vaccinations. But many of the grievances go back further and are far more complex than anger at sudden restrictions by governments fearing a fourth winter surge in the pandemic.

For many of the governments it has been a spectacular u-turn. The Minister of Health in Denmark announced last August that “Covid-19 is no longer a critical threat to society.” Last week Denmark announced new lockdown provisions, including the need to show a vaccination pass at bars and pubs and sports meetings of more than 2,000.

For three nights in a row cities and villages across the Netherlands saw rioting, stoning and burning. This included a rock being thrown at an ambulance carrying a patient in the Hague, and a primary school burned down in the southern town Roosendaal. In Enschede the biggest city facing the German border, the mayor imposed an overnight curfew after rioting and burning on Saturday night. 

In Brussels, a demonstration against vaccination passes and a new lockdown drew up to 35,000. By dusk it had turned violent with attacks on police with fireworks and Molotov cocktails. 

President Macron warned on Monday of a ‘serious emergency’ in the French dependencies of Guadeloupe and its neighbour Martinique in the Caribbean. Guadeloupe had seen three days and nights of rioting and looting, and the resident police force were in danger of being overwhelmed. Macron has ordered the immediate despatch of 200 specialist Gendarmes and 50 special forces troops. Both islands have a low level of vaccination with only 37% of adults receiving jabs.

The common thread to the riots is protest against new lockdowns, the requirement for public sector employees to be vaccinated and the re-imposition of vaccination ‘green’ passes. Rioters in Vienna were angered by the closing of bars and restaurants for the next three weeks. The government has also said it is considering passing a law compelling public employees to be vaccinated. 

Germany, the Netherlands, Croatia, Italy and Denmark are facing a sudden surge in the number of Covid cases. This is putting further strain on hospital services – in Berlin and Vienna government officials have warned about the possibility of the public health services being overwhelmed, especially if the Covid crisis is compounded by a winter influenza epidemic. 

The European regional director of the WHO, Dr Hans Kluge, told the BBC this weekend that new restrictive measures were required to stem the surge. This mean new measures insisting on the wearing of masks, vaccinations and vaccination passes were needed, or “half a million new Covid deaths could be recorded (in Europe) by the Spring.” 

Denmark seemed to have had the pandemic under control – with a much lower rate of Covid deaths than either the US or the UK. At the beginning of this month the US had recorded 2,303 Covid deaths per million, the UK 2,126, and Denmark only 471 have died per million population. In a slightly complacent feature article last week in the New York Times, three researchers for the Danish HOPE project, looking into the social impact of Covid-19, suggested that Denmark was sufficiently cohesive socially to accept new pandemic restrictions with good grace.

The three, Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Sune Lehmann, and Andreas Roepstorff, said they had worked from 400,000 questionnaires and responses from Danes. The replies suggested that Denmark benefited from three outstanding characteristics. Denmark is one of the highest trust societies in the world – with over 90% consensus and support of public institutions, in health, schools and local government. Second, it has a compact political spectrum with a broad consensus across mainstream parties and political factions. 

Third, write the analysts, is a factor summed up by the almost untranslatable Danish quality of samfundssind meaning a special quality of ‘community spirit,’ and ‘mucking in together.’ In truth it all sounds a bit like a sub plot from the Scandi television drama ‘Borgen’, based around government intrigue in Copenhagen – a surprise hit, of which we are lucky enough to be getting a fourth series in UK soon.

However, Danish trust, cross-party consensus and community support got a punch in the guts from the Covid crisis with what has become known as ‘Minkgate.’ Last year the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, ordered all the country’s mink to be slaughtered immediately – as they were understood to carry and spread a virulent mutation of the Delta variant of the virus. In all about 11 million animals were killed out of a population of about 17 million – and the industry was destroyed.

It has subsequently transpired that the government had no authority to make such an order. The minister of agriculture resigned. The compensation bill is thought to top $3 billion – and Ms Frederiksen is due to be grilled about it all by a joint session of parliament next month.

Despite the high trust, balanced politics and community samfundssind, Danes did some pretty spectacular rioting over Covid restrictions at the weekend. Their casus belli for attacking police and throwing fireworks and bricks is likely to be much deeper than rage about another lockdown, and vaccination passes. 

The case is more explicit in the Netherlands which has been under a light touch lockdown for a fortnight already. One of the most bizarre incidents occurred on the island of Urk, a small island connected by causeway in the Ijsselmeer – or Zuider Zee in old geography. Urk has a small deeply conservative population in what is known as Holland’s Bible-belt. When I visited a few summers back it seemed also to be a favourite spot for gay summer tourism. Last week a club called ‘t Bun insisted on Covid vaccination or immunity passes before allowing use of its swimming pool. Overnight the walls were daubed with messages ‘unvaccinated forbidden’ and ‘Nazis welcome.’ Urk has the lowest vaccination rate in the Netherlands at only 32% of the population. Saturday saw a full blown riot on the island, with 16 arrests.

Elsewhere, the Covid riots have been adopted by extremists supporting much of the racist posturings of the Forum for Democracy movement founded by the self-styled philosopher-politician Thierry Baudet. It is a frankly populist nationalist party, subject to various successes and splits since it began campaigning eight years ago. It appeals to many of the rioters with its nativist, and sometimes flagrantly anti-semitic slogans. Some supporters openly speak about a Jewish conspiracy to bring immigrants into Europe, such as those now on the Poland-Belarus border.

The Dutch prime minister, and Rotterdam’s dynamic mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, Dutch born and ethnically Moroccan, have been baffled by the extremely sophisticated tactics of the rioters. In Rotterdam the mayor had to sanction police using live ammunition ‘since lives are at stake.’ “The problem is that there are now almost professional rioters. They plan their activities from out of the way, obscure places,” says Mirjam, herself  professional security sector analyst.

“These rioters take things a step further. They are extremely frustrated – they meet up in not very obvious places – like the southern town of Eindhoven, for example. They challenge to get a police response – they plan their protests to manipulate violence. The prime minister has spoken of the difficulty of keeping track of them.” This weekend groups of Covid rioters broke into crowds to start fighting at two football matches.  

Some academics see the anti-authoritarian stance of the Covid rioters as merging eventually with the opinions of the most hardline climate change deniers. “Ideology is the enemy of technology,” says Bruno Macaes, the polymath geopolitical thinker. He depicts the two strands interweaving in his new essay, “Geopolitics for the End of Time.” 

Covid has been midwife to our new age of uncertainty. Pathologies and patterns are more understood than eighteen months ago, but where the pathogen goes next is an open question, most virologists seem to suggest. From a geopolitical perspective, there are still huge blanks in the story. Russia, for example, appears to be suffering terribly as hospital and medical services are threadbare to non-existent in so much of the vast territory. Hence we get Vladimir Putin’s nervousness and anxiety to distract attention to a string of tricks and feints along the borders, rather than what is going on inside his country. China’s claim to achieve a state of ‘Covid-zero’ still appears a boast with almost now credible supporting evidence. Finally the effect of Covid through most of Africa and Latin America, is largely a blank sheet. Equally little is known of the hot conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan and sub-Saharan Africa. 

We may not yet be half way through the pandemic caused by this bout of Covid-19/SARS02 variant. Subliminally we may be haunted by the notion of that the great pandemic of H1N1, known as Spanish Flu, burnt out mysteriously after two major waves in Europe between summer 1917 and summer 1922. As Sir Paul Vallance and Prof Chris Whitty, the two senior UK scientific officials on the case, pointed out recently ‘the political timetable doesn’t coincide with the rhythms of scientific discovery and developments. The one demands and immediate turn round of decision and result – the other is a journey into the unknown of unpredictable fortune and outcome.

Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, has said he thought the UK, England particularly, was well placed to be ahead of the curve in the eventuality of a fourth surge in the pandemic this winter. Let’s hope his finger are well crossed.