The recent large-scale protests against right-wing extremism are being dismissed by the AfD party, which remains unfazed and sees this as a desperate “last-ditch effort” to sway public opinion ahead of crucial elections.
Over the last two weeks, 1.5 million people across Germany have been taking to the streets since Correctiv uncovered that party members met with Neo-Nazis in a secretive meeting in Potsdam. Among other things, the arbitrary deportation of German citizens with migration backgrounds was discussed, causing an outcry from the general public.
Around 100,000 protested in cities including Hamburg and Düsseldorf this weekend, with the protests expected to culminate in Berlin this Saturday. However, the AfD is unfazed by the massive public backlash.
“We see this as a last-ditch effort, so to speak, to somehow score points in the upcoming elections because the political arguments have run out in the parliaments,” chief whip of the AfD’s parliamentary group, Bernd Baumann, said on Monday at a press conference in Berlin.
Baumann also tried to diminish the bipartisan character of the protests, saying that it would only represent the “entire left-green caste”.
“We have a total of ten million voters, now, a few hundred thousand have taken to the streets for left-green politics. From our point of view, these are different target groups that have been called upon, representing this entire left-green caste in Germany,” he said.
Nonetheless, protests of this size have not been seen for decades in Germany, outnumbering large protests against TTIP in 2015 and the Fridays for Future movement in 2019 by a significant margin.
Germany is facing three national state elections in the East of Germany in addition to the upcoming EU elections.
Since the revelation, the AfD has slipped slightly in the current polls to around 20%. However, the party is still outperforming the incumbent ruling parties, settling only behind CDU, a recent poll has found.
The party is also leading comfortably in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg, the three states in which state elections are due this year.
In addition, the connection of the AfD with the meeting in Potsdam has now drawn attention across the national border.
Le Pen questions EU-level alliance with AfD, spelling trouble for ID unity
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen questioned the collaboration with the German AfD over allegations that some members were involved in discussions about deporting German citizens with migration backgrounds, prompting her French competitor Eric Zemmour to rush to the German far-right’s defence.
Last Thursday, Marine Le Pen, the leading figure of the French Rassemblement National party (RN), questioned the collaboration with the AfD on a European level. Both parties work together in the same group in the European Parliament – the Identity and Democracy (ID).
“We will have to discuss differences as important as these and see whether or not they will have […] consequences for our ability to work together in the same [European party] group,” she told reporters at a press conference in Paris.
Consequently, Baumann has announced talks to “set the record straight about how things really are.”
According to Baumann, the statements by Le Pen were based on media reports which were “completely wrong in terms of the entire tone of voice.”
(Kjeld Neubert | Euractiv.de)
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Source: euractiv.com