Open Editor's Digest for free
Rula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party called for mass deportations of migrants as the party launches its platform for next month's general elections.
In a fiery speech to supporters in the small town of Riesa in the eastern German state of Saxony, Alice Weidel said that under the AfD – which is in second place in the polls with a record vote share of around 20 percent – Germany will see “repatriations.” “on a large scale.” “widespread.”
Weidel, the AfD's candidate for chancellor in the election, used the controversial term “immigration” to describe the policy.
The word was coined by right-wing Austrian theorist Martin Sellner, who defines “remigration” as the forced removal of immigrants who break the law or “refuse to integrate,” regardless of their citizenship status — an idea that critics say is akin to ethnic cleansing.
“I have to tell you very frankly: If this is called a second migration, it is called a second migration,” Weidel said on Saturday.
It was met with loud applause from party delegates who repeatedly chanted “Alice für Deutschland” – a play on the banned Nazi-era slogan “Alles für Deutschland”, meaning “Everything for Germany”.
Weidel, a former Goldman Sachs analyst, has presented herself as the most stylish face of a party that includes extreme extremists classified as right-wing extremists by Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
Earlier this week, in a joint appearance on the
However, his chance of coming to power in the next elections is slim because all other major parties in Germany have ruled out entering into a coalition with him.
Some in the party saw Weidel's embrace of immigration as a nod to Björn Höcke, the far-right standard-bearer who led the AfD to a historic first place in regional elections in the eastern German state of Thuringia in September.
“It's a concession to Björn Höcke,” said Kai Gottschalk, a member of the German parliament who belongs to the party's more moderate wing. “It's a word, of course. I would like to put it another way – bring them back – but that's what the delegates want.”
Weidel also used her speech to reiterate her call to bring the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany back online, bring back nuclear power and oppose gender studies programmes.
The party rally was met with widespread protests. About 10,000 anti-AfD demonstrators gathered, and police closed off the town of Riesa, with a population of 30,000, delaying the start of the conference by two hours.
