The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, accused the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) of promoting "ethnic cleansing" with its "remigration" campaign, after the party's expressive victory in the state elections over the weekend. In his first public confrontation with the AfD since Sunday's surprising result in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz stated, in a heated parliamentary debate, that the far-right party would attack one of the pillars of the German economy with a racist campaign of mass deportations.
"The term 'remigration' is nothing more than a synonym for ethnic cleansing based on origin and skin color," he said on Wednesday, under applause from the other parties in the lower chamber of the Bundestag. In a heated speech directed at the AfD parliamentary group, which repeatedly interrupted him with loud insults and boos, Merz stated that millions of working immigrants are crucial for German society.
