pro-Romanian stance … Moldova’s authorities temporarily banned the Popular Christian Democratic Party after it organized anti-Russian demonstrations in … Chisinau in response to plans to make Russian an official language.

The protests began in January after officials ordered mandatory Russian language training beginning in grade two … Almost daily for six weeks thousands of protesters have jammed [the capital] … the largest protests since Moldova left the Soviet Union in 1991 … Spurred at first by a government edict replacing a Romanian history course with one centred on Moldova, the demonstrators now demand that parliament resign and make way for new elections … The Communists ran on a platform, since shelved, of forming a political union with Russia and Belarus. Some here see the new history course as an effort to recast Moldova’s past in a rosy pro-Soviet light and ignore its Romanian roots. The students are even more solidly proEuropean.