SRF says far-left groups backed calls behind Zurich and Basel riots

Far-left groups and climate strike sections helped spread calls for violent protest before riots in Zurich and Basel, according to an analysis by Swiss public broadcaster SRF. The analysis says that, alongside opportunistic participants, the violence had an ideological far-left core that viewed it as political action.

Police said several hundred people joined an unauthorised demonstration in Zurich overnight. Far-left groups had called for the protest. Participants set barricades and a car on fire and attacked police during an operation. Officers used water cannons, irritant and rubber bullets. The amount of property damage and whether anyone was injured were not known.

In Basel, about 150 people, most of them very young, demonstrated. Barricades were set alight only at the end of the protest.

SRF pointed to social media posts circulated in the days before the demonstrations. One Instagram account, created on Tuesday, posted a video with flames from a burning town hall in Limoges, France, behind a montage of a dancing cat. The caption read, “Let the spark catch.” Another post showed a person wearing a Palestinian scarf and using a slingshot, alongside the words “Escalate the Struggle.” A later post said, “Zurich is burning and we are dancing.”

Known far-left groups and, in some cases, climate strike sections liked and shared the posts. Some posts cited rising rents, health insurance costs and state surveillance as reasons for protest. SRF said the posts appeared to draw inspiration from street battles and burning barricades rather than peaceful mass demonstrations in France and Germany.

The analysis also cited a speech last week by far-left figure Andrea Stauffacher outside Zurich District Court. “We have seen that Europe can burn. And that is important,” she said. Support for violence was also evident in reactions to a fire at a company in Thun that makes, among other products, rubber bullets for police. Police suspect arson. A video described as a claim of responsibility appeared on Friday and glorified the fire, SRF reported. Far-left and climate strike groups shared it widely.

SRF said the size and scale of the riots in Zurich and Basel were limited compared with events abroad, but that the night showed the influence of an ideologically far-left, violence-ready core among some younger people.