Den Bosch mayor Jack Mikkers said mayors should receive more powers under new legislation to intervene in or regulate demonstrations. Speaking on the television programme Pauw & De Wit, he said the municipality had seen the number of demonstrations rise from 10 in 2017 to 300 now, citing protests over an asylum shelter in Angels and a farmers’ protest involving tractors on a motorway as examples.

Mikkers said demonstrating was a fundamental right that could not simply be prohibited, but argued that limits were needed when demonstrations affected other people’s freedom. He also referred to an anti-abortion protest in Den Bosch and a pro-Hamas demonstration in Amsterdam, saying that rioting, face coverings and threats to public health were not allowed. He said mayors faced growing difficulty in balancing public order, democracy and their role as a moral compass, and called for legislation giving them more room to act.