London (AFP)

The disappearance of a photo of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from a Google search has raised questions in the United Kingdom, when the figure of the former conservative leader is questioned, in the wave of protests anti-racists.

When internet users type "British Prime Ministers" on Google, photos of British heads of government appear in a timeline called "Knowledge graph". All the portraits were visible on Saturday morning, except that of Winston Churchill, which prompted many Twitter users to accuse Google of censorship.

"Mind-boggling if it's deliberate policy, @Google. Western Europe would almost certainly be enslaved without the man whose photo is now missing," tweeted Simon Clarke, secretary of state for regional growth and local government. , defending the hero of World War II.

"We are aware that an image of Sir Winston Churchill is missing from his Knowledge Graph entry on Google," tweeted Google's search liaison, the communication body of the search engine responsible for explaining its workings. Google apologized for the "concerns" caused by the incident, which the group said was due to an "automatic refresh", promising that it "will be resolved" quickly.

Many other images of the Conservative leader were available Saturday morning for image search or web search.

Last weekend, the statue of ex-Prime Minister Winston Churchill, near the parliament, in London, was degraded in the margins of demonstrations against racism, triggered by the death of the black American George Floyd, asphyxiated by a police officer White. The inscription "was a racist" was tagged under the name of the conservative leader, accused of having made racist remarks, in particular against the Indians.

The statue was protected from possible damage by a metal box before new anti-racist demonstrations on Saturday, and prompted thousands of protesters, including far-right activists to go near the parliament to "stand guard" around his statue. Clashes took place between right-wing protesters and the police, who made around 100 arrests.

© 2020 AFP