Several organizations called for these rallies less than a month before the German legislative elections.
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Demonstrations against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party brought together tens of thousands of people in Germany on Saturday January 25 to call for “block” to this training, one month before the legislative elections. The largest rallies took place in Berlin and Cologne, with 35,000 and 20,000 demonstrators respectively, according to police, while organizers estimated the number in the German capital at 100,000.
In front of the emblematic Brandenburg Gate, the demonstrators formed at nightfall “a sea of light for democracy”with their cell phones, brandishing letters forming the word “Résistance”noted AFP journalists. Thousands of people also mobilized in Halle where the co-leader of the AfD, Alice Weidel, held a meeting during which the American billionaire Elon Musk spoke, via video.
Several organizations called for these rallies in around sixty cities, four weeks before the February 23 elections to renew the German Parliament. The AfD is in second place in voting intentions in the polls with 20%, behind the conservative CDU/CSU with around 30%.
Under the slogan “We are blocking it!”the protesters marched peacefully, carrying signs that included “The Nazis outside” or “the AfD is not an alternative” in reference to the far-right party “Alternative for Germany”.
Slogans also targeted the leader of the conservative CDU Party Friedrich Merz, favorite for the chancellorship. Supporting a radical tightening of migration policy, some fear that he will be tempted to break “the sanitary cordon” German political parties refusing any alliance with the AfD.