It was the strongest and first unequivocal condemnation by a representative of the country’s conservative leadership of the white supremacist and racist views expressed by some of the 60,000 people who took part in a march on Saturday’s Independence Day holiday in Warsaw.

Government members over the past two days had mostly described participants as patriots and played down the nature of the xenophobic messages.

But Jewish groups called on the Polish authorities to condemn the message of banners with slogans such as “pure blood, clear mind” or “Europe will be white or uninhabited” that some nationalists carried at a march on 11 November – the anniversary of Polish independence from Russia, Austria and Germany at the end of the first world war.

Though many families took part in the march, the event was organised by far-right groups and some carried banners with slogans like “White Europe of brotherly nations” or had flags with Celtic crosses – a white supremacist symbol.

There were also antisemitic and anti-Muslim slogans and chants. One large banner read “Deus Vult” in Gothic lettering. Latin for “God wills it,” it was a cry used during the First Crusade in the 11th century, when a Christian army from Europe slaughtered Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land. In recent years, it has been used by the radical right to show hostility to Islam.

President Andrzej Duda said that “there is no place in Poland” for xenophobia, pathological nationalism and antisemitism and that the country must remain a land open to all who want to come together and work for the good of the nation.

It was the strongest and first unequivocal condemnation by a representative of the country’s conservative leadership of the white supremacist and racist views expressed by some of the 60,000 people who took part in a march on Saturday’s Independence Day holiday in Warsaw.

Government members over the past two days had mostly described participants as patriots and played down the nature of the xenophobic messages.

But Jewish groups called on the Polish authorities to condemn the message of banners with slogans such as “pure blood, clear mind” or “Europe will be white or uninhabited” that some nationalists carried at a march on 11 November – the anniversary of Polish independence from Russia, Austria and Germany at the end of the first world war.

Though many families took part in the march, the event was organised by far-right groups and some carried banners with slogans like “White Europe of brotherly nations” or had flags with Celtic crosses – a white supremacist symbol.

There were also antisemitic and anti-Muslim slogans and chants. One large banner read “Deus Vult” in Gothic lettering. Latin for “God wills it,” it was a cry used during the First Crusade in the 11th century, when a Christian army from Europe slaughtered Jews and Muslims in the Holy Land. In recent years, it has been used by the radical right to show hostility to Islam.

President Andrzej Duda said that “there is no place in Poland” for xenophobia, pathological nationalism and antisemitism and that the country must remain a land open to all who want to come together and work for the good of the nation.