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.
In their first public confrontation since Sunday’s shock outcome in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz said at a raucous parliamentary debate that the AfD 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”.
Merz, a conservative Christian Democrat, has seen his support plummet in the ۱۶ months since he took office at the helm of a coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats, amid disappointment over slow progress on economic growth and the cost of living.
He has adopted a hard line on border policy in a faltering bid to win back AfD supporters, and acknowledged Germany still had “problems in the area of migration”.
“We still have many people in Germany who should not have permanent residency. This is consensus in the [ruling] coalition, that we need to deport more people,” he said on Wednesday.
“But we make a careful distinction between those who work in Germany, who contribute to our prosperity, and who are welcome here, and those who do not have permanent residency in Germany and who must leave our country. Unlike you [the AfD], we take great care to make this distinction.”
The AfD won nearly ۴۴% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt but fell three seats short of an absolute majority. Its chief candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, is seeking potential supporters among the other parties to elect him as state premier.
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Merz, who has acknowledged that his unpopularity played a role in his CDU party’s debacle in which it saw its support in the state cut in half, tried to put a brave face on the rout. “Fifty-six percent of voters in Saxony-Anhalt didn’t vote for you,” he told the AfD.
He accused Siegmund, whose party is classed as rightwing extremist by domestic intelligence, of “electoral fraud” by already breaking a campaign promise not to seek to govern the state if he failed to win an absolute majority.
“And you won’t manage that in Germany either” at the federal level, Merz told AfD co-leader Alice Weidel. “Nowhere in Germany will you get a majority. You are and remain a destructive force.”
Merz also attacked the AfD for its opposition to military assistance for Ukraine, and accused it of making common cause with Russia, which Berlin has alleged is mounting a sabotage and disinformation campaign on its soil.
He said that despite “clear evidence” a failed drone bomb attack at Leipzig airport last month “had been planned in Russia for months and was specifically directed against Germany”, the AfD had remained silent on it.
Earlier from the podium, Weidel savoured her party’s resounding election victory, saying the CDU had been “pulverised” and calling it a referendum on Merz’s leadership.
Attacking the government’s migration policy and blaming it for crime and other security problems, Weidel said: “Your time is up. The public want a change in policy, and they will get it,” reiterating her party’s aim to form a federal government in the foreseeable future.
Polls show Merz’s fractious coalition would not have a majority in a general election, which is not scheduled until ۲۰۲۹.
The AfD is polling in first place at ۲۸% to ۲۹%, with the wind at its back before another two state polls this month, in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
