Warsaw (AFP) – After the two days of national mourning decreed after the Krakow massacre, Poland plunges back into political crisis with a high-tension meeting on Tuesday at the Constitutional Court, the subject of a fierce battle between the government and the opposition.

Published on: 10/11/2026 - 00:28

Since his return to business in 2023, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has worked, in vain, to reform this jurisdiction placed under the control of power during the mandates of the national-conservative Law and Justice party (PiS, 2015-2023).

The PiS, which has placed loyal figures there, has mobilized its troops who have been demonstrating and camping for several months now in front of the court, neighboring the Apostolic Nunciature, the Ukrainian embassy and major ministries in Warsaw.

Right-wing and far-right activists and sympathizers besiege it, praying and singing in tents between two visits from the leader of PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, or that of the Polish Crown Confederation party, the anti-Semitic and Holocaust denier MEP Grzegorz Braun.

The crisis worsened at the end of October when the police were deployed to block access to the court and a magistrate elected by the current majority announced that she would take over as interim head, to the detriment of the current president, close to the nationalist head of state Karol Nawrocki. The magistrate contests his dismissal.

Poland is in fact in shock from the massacre perpetrated on Saturday November 7 by a young local man on the market square of the former capital, popular with foreign tourists.

Michal Oksinski killed six people and injured 15 others by randomly shooting at passers-by before being neutralized. He died Monday morning in hospital.

“High risk” walk

A two-day national mourning was declared which ended on Monday, and the standoff at the summit can then resume.

On Tuesday, a general meeting must be held at the Constitutional Court to examine its statutes and its functioning, so as to initiate its reform.

In accordance with requests from Brussels, the pro-European Tusk wishes to conform it to the rules of the rule of law and to put an end to political appointments - to which it itself, in 2015, had resorted.

The opposition, for its part, accuses him of “betrayal” and “coup d’état” under the diktat of Brussels.

Then, on Wednesday, it will be the Independence March.

This event brings together tens, even hundreds of thousands of right-wing sympathizers every year, from Catholic conservatives to small supremacist groups to the anti-Semitic and pro-Russian far right.

President Nawrocki also announced his presence.

Some observers speak of "a high-risk march", fearing that the crowd will leave the planned route to march on the Constitutional Court.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Sunday dismissed rumors that the march could be banned.

“Speculation about this is nothing but misinformation,” he wrote on X, calling on participants to refrain from “any acts of aggression” and urging their opponents to desist from counter-protests.

The carrying of weapons was prohibited that day and the town hall announced a strengthening of security measures with the installation of concrete blocks on certain arteries.

© 2026 AFP

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