Hundreds of thousands of protesters supported the call launched by more than 1,500 organizations across Germany this Saturday. far right. These were marches of different formats spread across 150 cities, the largest of which was Berlin.
“We are the firewall”was a common slogan implying a cordon around the far right Alternative to Germany (AfD)The rest of the political spectrum ignores him as an ally. The Berlin rally aimed to form a human chain around the Reichstag, the historic center of the federal Parliament, or Bundestag. The huge influx of citizens, up to 300,000 according to the Campact platform, or half as many according to the police, made this plan unfeasible. The plan was immediately changed and those gathered were asked to simply hold hands, without trying to form a “cordon” around the Bundestag.
There were similar concentrations in other cities such as Dresden or Hamburg. In addition to the joint protest against the AfD, its aim was to demand from the political establishment stronger actions against the far right and more support for pro-asylum projects.
Among the 1,500 conveners were both events and organizations. Amnesty International or Pro-Asyl, trade unions, religious groups or environmental activists. Political parties were excluded in order to clearly demonstrate that it was a “waking” citizenry that was not bound by ideologies. Representatives of the parties, including Green Party President Ricarda Lang, attended the meeting. But they did it personally.
“Mass re-migration”
The trigger for this and other mobilizations was the revelation of an event. meeting in PotsdamA city neighboring Berlin, where right-wing extremists, businessmen and neo-Nazis live. Deportation of millions of foreigners or other naturalized citizens of non-German origin. In addition to the AfD, which ranked second in the voting rankings among those who attended the meeting, the so-called Union of Values, the inner current of the conservative opposition. This group announced a few days ago the formation of a new party that will not exclude alliances with the AfD. Although it has split from the left, it will, like another recently formed party, represent a hard line against asylum and Sahara Wagenknecht Alliancename of their leaders.
Amidst the daze of plans mass “re-migration” and with the emergence of two new radical formations, the AfD began to fall to 19 percent in the polls. According to public television channels Ard and Zdf, this rate fell below 20% for the first time in months. The party remains in second place, left behind by the conservative opposition and well ahead of the parties in Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition, the social democrats, greens and liberals.