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🇮🇹 Italy /Culture & Society

Merz: ‘We will not let the AfD destroy the country with its words’ as Magdeburg protests far right

From ANSA · () Italian

Translated from Italian and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News From a news agency Ongoing story
  • Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany would not allow the far-right AfD to destroy the country with its rhetoric, while calling for a more substantive debate with the party.
  • Thousands joined a democracy festival in Magdeburg, where more than 300 civil-society groups opposed what organizers called the state’s antidemocratic drift.
  • The AfD led the polls ahead of the Saxony-Anhalt election and planned to close its campaign in Magdeburg with co-leader Alice Weidel.

“We will not let these people destroy our country with their words,” Friedrich Merz said as Germany approached regional elections in Saxony-Anhalt, where the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, was well ahead in the polls.

The chancellor and Christian Democratic Union leader also called for a more serious confrontation with the AfD’s political content. “We have to engage better with this party,” he said. “We have to engage with its content. We also have to engage with its choice of words.”

We will not let these people destroy our country with their words.

· Friedrich MerzThe German chancellor criticized the far-right AfD before the Saxony-Anhalt election.

Merz presented Germany as a country that, despite its problems and challenges, remained wealthy, secure and politically stable after almost 80 years of the Federal Republic. He was responding in part to remarks by Martin Reichardt, the AfD’s regional chairman in Saxony-Anhalt, who had described the state as “a lazy and drugged rabble” at a federal conference of the party’s youth organization, Generation Germany.

We have to engage better with this party. We have to engage with its content. We also have to engage with its choice of words.

· Friedrich MerzMerz called for a deeper and more substantive debate with the AfD.

Thousands of people gathered at Magdeburg Cathedral Square for the Festival of Democracy before the vote. The demonstration brought together more than 300 organizations under the banner Saxony-Anhalt Open to the World, an initiative founded two and a half years ago to oppose what it calls the state’s antidemocratic drift. The participants included nongovernmental organizations, climate activists, trade unions, Catholic and Protestant churches, and the Omas gegen Rechts, or Grandmothers Against the Right.

The AfD was due to hold its official campaign-closing event in Magdeburg, with co-leader Alice Weidel supporting lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund. The party had long led the CDU in polling, with reports putting its support in the state at 42 percent and describing its program as highly radical.

A lazy and drugged rabble

· Martin ReichardtThe AfD’s regional chairman used the phrase to describe the state at a conference of the party’s youth organization.
About this summary

Originally published by ANSA in Italian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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