Several thousand people, including 3,000 in Berlin according to the police, demonstrated on Sunday May 11 in Germany for the ban on alternative for Germany (AFD), while the far-right anti-immigration party challenges an internal intelligence decision to classify it as a group “Convenient right -wing extremist”.
The demonstrators gathered in more than 60 cities, from Cologne to Hamburg via the capital, to the call of the associative network “Zusammen Gegen Rechts” (“Together against the right”). “AFD is not a normal party and should not be treated as such. It is now time to seriously examine the party ban ”he declares on his site.
In Berlin, the rally at the emblematic Porte de Brandenburg attracted in the afternoon more than 7,000 people according to the organizers, 3,000 according to the police. “All together against fascism” they chanted, brandishing LGBT + flags and signs against the party which collected 20 % of the votes to the last legislative elections.
A few days before the inauguration of the new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the internal intelligence service classified AFD as “Convenient right -wing extremist”which can represent a danger for democratic order. On Thursday, German internal intelligence temporarily suspended this decision while waiting for justice, seized of an appeal by the party, makes its decision.
The decision has already caused strong political tensions, especially in relations with the Trump administration, which has taken up the cause for AFD. And rekindled the debate on his ban, thorny subject for Friedrich Merz, responsible for containing the development of the training arrived in second position in the February legislative elections.
“The CDU must, at the latest now, face the dangers represented by AFD and position itself clearly”demanded this weekend Britta Haßelmann, head of environmental deputies in the Bundestag, during an interview with the media Rnd. So far, the conservatives are opposed to it, so as not to strengthen AFD in its supposed role of victim.