BERLIN - Demonstrators descended on Berlin Sunday to protest last week's decision by Germany's conservatives to make overtures to the far right ahead of this month's legislative election, drawing at least , people, according to police. Organisers said , people had turned out to denounce the breach by the Christian Democratic Union CDU of Germany's unwritten agreement not to work with the far right at the national level, in place since World War II.
After the rally started just outside the Bundestag, Germany's parliament building, some protesters chanted slogans including "Shame on you CDU" before moving on towards the party's headquarters.
Others accused the CDU, currently the main opposition party, and its leader, Friedrich Merz, of having made a "pact with the devil" by seeking the backing of the far-right Alternative for Germany AfD to pass an anti-immigration bill.
She was joining a political rally for the first time as "we can no longer avert our gaze, it's too serious", she added. The CDU's canvassing for the far-right AfD's support in parliament last week sparked widespread fury in Germany, less than a month ahead of a snap federal election. In doing so Merz, frontrunner ahead of the February 23 vote, broke the decades-old "firewall" set up in the aftermath of the horrors wrought by Nazi Germany. The two parties passed a non-binding resolution on Wednesday in a bid to block undocumented foreigners at the border, including asylum seekers.
They failed on Friday to pass a contentious bill to further restrict immigration, but the taboo on working together had been broken. But she said she was reassured by the rally's turnout. Already on Saturday, more than , people had marched in cities across the country, including Hamburg, Leipzig, Cologne and Stuttgart, according to figures compiled by public broadcaster ARD. Centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz on X said that hundreds of thousands had turned out to send a message: "Never with the far right.
