Tens of thousands of protesting in Berlin against the growing influence of the extreme right

Within a month the Germans go to the polls. The expectation is that the extremely right-wing anti-immigration and anti-EU party AfD will achieve a strong result. The protesters ask that the traditional parties confirm their opposition to cooperation with the AFD.

The message is directly addressed to opposition leader Friedrich Merz an the Christian Democratic CDU, who is a favorite to win the elections on February 23. Merz has repeatedly said that he does not want to collaborate with the AfD, but at the same time he is not opposed to the support of AfD for his proposals for a stricter migration policy.

According to Christoph Bautz, one of the initiators of the protest of Saturday evening, there will be a “rebellion of decent people” in the country when Merz, together with the AFD, will push a drastic strict migration policy through parliament.

There were also protests in other places in the west of Germany on Saturday. The police estimate that there were around 40,000 protesters in Cologne, while the authorities had only counted on 5,000 protesters. Many slogans were not only directed against the AfD, but also against Merz.

In Aschaffenburg (Bavaria) 3,000 protesters arrived on the street. After the deadly stabbing in a park there, the migration debate in Germany again flared up.