Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has accused the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) of seeking “ethnic cleansing” with its “remigration” drive, after the nativist party’s seismic weekend victory in a state election,
The Guardian reports.
In his first public confrontation with the AfD since Sunday’s shock outcome in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz said at a raucous parliamentary debate that the far-right party would take an axe to one of the pillars of the German economy with a racist campaign of mass deportations.
“The term ‘remigration’ is nothing but a synonym for ethnic cleansing based on origin and skin colour,” he said on Wednesday to applause from the other parties in the Bundestag lower house.
In a fiery speech addressed to the AfD parliamentary group, which repeatedly interrupted him with loud taunts and heckling, Merz said millions of working immigrants were crucial to German society.
“If those working in Germany have to leave the country again because you are championing ‘remigration’,” Merz said, “then the skilled trades in Germany will no longer be able to function: not a single care home will remain open, not a single hospital in Germany will remain operational, and not a single restaurant in Germany will be able to stay in business.”
He said the AfD’s rhetoric, which propelled it to the strongest showing for a far-right party in a German state since the Nazi period, “is precisely what is dividing our society so deeply”.
The AfD has repeatedly called for large-scale expulsions of irregular migrants, a policy that would face stiff challenges under German law.
