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		</div><p>Police ordered a protest by people opposed to Germany’s pandemic restrictions to disband after participants refused to observe social distancing rules.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of people had gathered at the German capital’s Brandenburg Gate in the morning before streaming down the Unter den Linden boulevard in a show of defiance against Germany’s coronavirus prevention measures.</p>
<p>Protesters carried a wide range of grievances and banners proclaiming their opposition to vaccinations, face masks and the German government in general.</p>
<p>Some waved American, Russian or German Reich flags, while others had T-shirts promoting the “QAnon” conspiracy theory.</p>
<p>Several wore clothing with white nationalist slogans and neo-Nazi insignia, but most participants denied having far-right views.</p>
<p>Uwe Bachmann, 57, said he had come from southwestern Germany to protest for free speech and his right not to wear a mask.</p>
<p>“I respect those who are afraid of the virus,” said Mr Bachmann, who was wearing a costume and a wig that tried to evoke stereotypical Native American attire.</p>
<p>He suggested, without elaborating, that “something else” was behind the pandemic.</p>
<p>Another protester said he wanted Germany’s current political system abolished and a return to the constitution of 1871 on the grounds that the country’s post-war political system was illegal.</p>
<p>Providing only his first name, Karl-Heinz, he had travelled with his sister from their home near the Dutch border to attend the protest and believed that the coronavirus cases being reported in Germany now were “false positives.”</p>
<p>Germany has seen an upswing in new cases in recent weeks.</p>
<p>The country’s disease control agency reported Saturday that Germany had almost 1,500 new infections over the past day.</p>
<p>Germany has been praised for the way it has handled the pandemic, and the country’s death toll of some 9,300 people is less than one-fourth the amount of people who have died of Covid-19 in Britain.</p>
<p>Berlin’s regional government had sought to ban the protest, citing anti-mask rallies earlier this month where rules intended to stop the virus from being spread further weren’t respected.</p>
<p>Protest organisers successfully appealed against the decision, though a court ordered them to ensure social distancing.</p>
<p>Failure to enforce that measure prompted Berlin police to dissolve the march.</p>
<p>Along the route were several smaller counter-protests where participants shouted slogans against the far-right’s presence at the anti-mask rally.</p>
<p>“I think there’s a line and if someone takes to the streets with neo-Nazis then they’ve crossed that line,” said Verena, a counter-protester from Berlin who declined to provide her surname.</p>
<p>In Germany, masks have to be worn on public transport, stores and some public buildings such as libraries and schools.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a few hundred people rallied Saturday in eastern Paris to protest new mask rules and other restrictions prompted by rising virus infections around France.</p>
<p>Police watched closely but did not intervene.</p>
<p>The protesters had no central organiser but included people in yellow vests who formerly protested economic injustice, others promoting conspiracy theories and those who call themselves “Anti-Masks”.</p>
<p>France has not seen an anti-mask movement like some other countries.</p>
<p>Masks are now required everywhere in public in Paris as authorities warn that infections are growing exponentially just as schools are set to resume classes.</p>
<p>France registered more than 7,000 new virus infections in a single day on Friday, up from several hundred a day in May and June, in part thanks to ramped-up testing.</p>
<p>It has the third-highest coronavirus death toll in Europe after Britain and Italy, with over 30,600 dead.</p>
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