At Saturday’s pro-GI rally, Florian Philippot, the president of the Patriots Party and former ally of Marine Le Pen, addressed the crowd.
The group also received messages of support from a number of leading figures in Le Pen’s National Rally.
Dries Van Langenhove, a controversial Belgian parliamentarian from the far-right Vlaams Belang party, also attended.
Videos posted on social media of the protest show GI activists kicking and punching a counter-demonstrator on the ground.
Les militants #GenerationIdentitaire ont lynché au sol un antifa. Il a pris plusieurs coups de pied au visage et plusieurs coups de poing. La #police est intervenue pour séparer, les militants #GenerationIdentitaire ont pris la fuite. #DenfertRochereaupic.twitter.com/V388lwr3jg
Tom Van Grieken, President of the far right Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang leaves after a meeting with Belgium s King Philippe at the Royal Palace in Brussels, Belgium May 29, 2019 [Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters]
This January, Belgium’s statistical agency, Statbel, released the first official study on the diversity of the Belgian population. The picture that emerged is one of an increasingly diverse and heterogeneous society.
The study revealed that while Belgian citizens of Belgian ancestry make up just more than two-thirds of the country’s population (67.9 percent), the rest is comprised of Belgian citizens of foreign ancestry (19.7 percent) and foreign nationals (12.4 percent).