BERLIN - Around 120,000 people took to the streets of Berlin on Saturday in the fourth week of protests against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Protests were also taking place in cities such as Dresden and Hanover, in a sign of growing alarm at strong public support for the AfD.
Police said people were still flocking to the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin, where protesters gathered under the slogan “We are the Firewall” to protest against right-wing extremism and to show support for democracy.
“Whether in Eisenach, Homburg or Berlin: in small and large cities across the country, many citizens are coming together to demonstrate against forgetting, against hatred and hate speech,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X.
He said the protests were “a strong sign in favour of democracy and our constitution”.
The recent success of the AfD has stoked concern among Germany’s mainstream parties, who fear it could sweep three state elections in eastern Germany in September, even though recent polls have shown a slight decline in AfD support.
Earlier this week, a Forsa poll showed that backing for the AfD dropped below 20% for the first time since July, with voters citing nationwide demonstrations against the far-right as the most important issue.
According to the poll, the AfD remains in second place behind the main opposition conservatives on 32%, while Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats polled third at 15%.
The protests followed a report last month that two senior AfD members had attended a meeting to discuss plans for the mass deportation of citizens of foreign origin.
The AfD has denied that the proposal represented party policy.
Support for 'Dexit'
Beyond its anti-immigrant stance, AfD has an economic platform under which Germany would leave the European Union as it is today — a plan dubbed “Dexit” — and return to a more limited European system of cooperation.
The party was founded in 2013 after the financial crisis by a group of free-market economists who were fundamentally critical of European integration and further angered by the EU’s bailout of Greece and other heavily indebted euro states.
According to AfD vice-chairman and budget committee spokesman Peter Boehringer, the party seeks “a free market economy with a social perspective” largely based on the 1948 model of Ludwig Erhard, the Christian Democrat politician who laid the foundations for Germany’s post-war reconstruction.
However, the AfD is adamant about the limits of the state’s role and would seek to cut taxes, including those seen by their backers as progressive and a means of wealth redistribution.
“Any form of state-directed economy will sooner or later end in misallocation and corruption,” its economic programme says, arguing for a reduction of state subsidies and a taxation ceiling, as well as abolishing wealth and inheritance taxes.
The party also wants Germany to quit the euro and reintroduce the Deutsche Mark, arguing that the single currency has led to many trade imbalances in the euro zone that previously could be compensated for through currency fluctuations.
The party supports keeping the minimum wage, pension reform and pro-family fiscal incentives.
“Families with children suffer dramatic financial disadvantages when compared to childless families. This results in the impoverishment of families and a lasting low birth rate,” the AfD programme says.
A Forsa survey showed an above-average proportion of working-class and unemployed voters among AfD supporters.