Belgian beach brawl fuels virus, political, climate tension

A woman sunbathes along the coastline at the Belgian seaside resort of Knokke, Belgium, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2020. BRUSSELS -- It started as a Saturday trip to Belgium's coast, a chance to escape a heat wave and coronavirus restrictions for a while. As the tide came in, the beach got crowded. Someone complained about the music being too loud. The mood quickly turned ugly.

Welcome to Belgium; a country that still has no full-time government 18 months after the last cabinet resigned; a country with one of the highest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world per population where restrictions are testing peoples' patience; a country that just doesn't get much really hot weather. It's a simmering political soup on the verge of boiling over.

"We are here in a country called Belgium, where the law is the law," Lippens said. "We want the rules to be followed and if the rules are not followed, well, we will use our police force to have them followed."Asked whether he worried that banning ordinary people from spending the day might tarnish the image of his town, the mayor said: "People come because they like it, and they like it because it's quality. We don't want quantity, we want quality.

The coast is just a 90-minute train ride from the capital Brussels. Other places where people without cars could get away and cool off are poorly served by public transport. Many youths boarded trains in Brussels on Tuesday, but the Knokke-Heist station was almost empty. "Going freely to the coast is a right that we all have. Being beach day-trippers does not make us terrorists for a day," De Crem said. For people like those involved in Saturday's beach riot in Blankenberge, De Crem suggested setting up a register -- similar to ones used for soccer hooligans -- and banning those on it from going to the coast.

Beach brawl, that picture looks pretty peaceful! Is it even a picture of a Belgian beach?

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