Demonstrations against the far-right AfD party brought together tens of thousands of people in Germany on Saturday to call for a “blockade” of this group accused of threatening democracy, one month before the legislative elections.
The largest gatherings took place in Berlin and Cologne (west), with some 35,000 and 20,000 demonstrators respectively, according to police, while organizers estimated the number of people in the German capital at 100,000.
In front of the emblematic Brandenburg Gate, at nightfall they formed “a sea of light for democracy” with their mobile phones, brandishing letters forming the word “Resistance”, AFP journalists noted. Several organizations called for these rallies in around sixty cities, four weeks before the February 23 elections to renew the German Parliament. The AfD is in second place in voting intentions in the polls with 20%, behind the conservative CDU/CSU with around 30%.
The mobilization turned out to be stronger than expected, with the police initially counting on 5,000 people in Cologne. Ten thousand people were expected in Berlin. Under the slogan “we are blocking it!”, the protesters marched peacefully, carrying signs reading “Nazis out” or “the AfD is not an alternative” in reference to the far-right party “Alternative for ‘Germany”.
Slogans also targeted the leader of the Conservative Party CDU Friedrich Merzfavorite for the Chancellery, and in favor of a radical tightening of migration policy, with some fearing that he would be tempted to break “the sanitary cordon” of German political parties refusing any alliance with the AfD.
-A demonstration also took place in Aschaffenburg, in Bavaria (south) where a deadly knife attack this week in a park, attributed to an Afghan in an illegal situation, has reignited the debate on immigration. Thousands of people also mobilized in Halle (east) where the co-leader of the AfD, Alice Weidel, held a meeting during which the American billionaire Elon Musk spoke, via video.
A year ago, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Germany for several weeks to protest against right-wing extremism after the revelation of a meeting of identitarians where it had been discussed of “remigration”, large-scale expulsions of foreigners or people of foreign origin.
Since then, the AfD has openly demanded “remigration”, which is part of its program. “We need remigration to live safely in Germany,” insisted Ms. Weidel Saturday during the meeting.
