TENS of thousands of people headed through Warsaw on Saturday in a march organised by nationalist and far-right groups as Poland celebrated its Independence Day holiday, 105 years after the nation regained its statehood at the end of World War I.

Participants carried Poland’s white-and-red flag and some burned flares as they marched from the city centre to the national stadium.

While many patriotic events take place across the nation of 38 million, the yearly independence march has come to dominate news coverage because it has sometimes been marred by xenophobic slogans and violence.