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German Chancellor Merz and AfD co-leader Alice Weidel trade bitter attacks after the party’s historic win in Saxony-Anhalt. Can Merz halt the AfD's momentum, or will his attacks backfire in upcoming regional elections?
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00:00This morning saw a fiery political showdown here in Berlin, a heated debate between the German
00:05Chancellor, still reeling from his party's defeat in a regional election at the weekend,
00:10and the leader of the AfD, Germany's largest opposition party, which won an overwhelming
00:17majority in that regional election. Alice Weidel and Friedrich Merz faced off for the first time
00:24since the Alternative for Germany party won nearly 44% of the vote in the state of Saxony-Anhalt
00:30on Sunday. Now that puts it on the cusp of becoming the first far-right party to govern a German
00:36state
00:37since the end of World War II. The debate in parliament this morning was interrupted by
00:43shouting and heckling from members of parliament while the two leaders went for the jugular.
00:49You have not gotten the message that voters in Saxony-Anhalt sent you last Sunday,
00:55but that's not relevant anymore, because your time has run out anyway. Citizens want a change
01:01in politics, and they'll get it. Nowhere in Germany will you achieve majorities with these policies.
01:09You are, and remain, Ms. Weidel, a destructive force.
01:15Both attacked each other's policies on migration, on the war in Ukraine, on energy policy and the
01:21economy, each accusing the other of wanting to destroy Germany with their politics. So was there
01:28a winner? Who got their message across more effectively? Is Alice Weidel right to be so confident
01:34about her party's path to power? Or can Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, and his conservative-led
01:41coalition hang on to power and convince voters that they are in fact being heard?
01:49Michaela Kufner, DW's chief political editor, was in the Bundestag listening to the chancellor and to
01:55Alice Weidel trading blows. So Michaela, there was barely a moment when there was no heckling or shouting
02:01from the parliamentarians while Weidel and Mats were speaking. Give us a sense of the atmosphere
02:07in the Bundestag during those speeches. I mean, is this kind of debate something that we see often
02:14in the Bundestag?
02:17No, and I'm just halfway through writing a script where I start with saying that it was a political mud
02:22fight. We have not, we have seen very tough exchanges. We've seen very heated debates in
02:27parliament. But this was a very bitter confrontation just days after that very bitter election defeat for
02:35German chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative CDU party in that small state of Saxony and had less
02:41than 3% of the German voters went to the polls. But what they did is they brought evidence that
02:49the
02:50far-right AFD rise is still continuing. It's the third successive regional elections where the AFD pretty
02:57much doubled in the case of Saxena, more than doubled its results. And we saw some very bitter
03:03exchanges, not just Alice Weidel, the AFD co-leader, being condescending, being clearly elated by this
03:11election victory and saying they will win centrally. She already declared that she doesn't believe that any of
03:18the centrist parties will ever win an election again. And the German chancellor was interrupted
03:23quite a few times by the AFD camp, clearly emboldened by that regional election victory.
03:29Talking about artificial intelligence, then getting interrupted and then questioning whether there was
03:36any intelligence on the part of that MP. So insults were exchanged. And the chancellor also in an
03:44unprecedented move accused the far-right AFD's policy of re-migration as what he called ethnic cleansing,
03:53which is not a closely defined legal term, but the UN definition encapsulates that that means pushing
04:01an ethnic or religious group out of a region through intimidation or force. So not just quite stern
04:09and accusations, but also a very, very rough tone today in parliament.
04:14So Michaela, on the subject of migration, I mean, Weidel attacked Mats on a variety of topics, didn't she?
04:23From the war in Ukraine to the economy and energy policy. But she was brutal in her criticism
04:30of his government's immigration policy. So I just want to take a listen to something that she said.
04:40You declare that the migration crisis has ended. Yet every year, a six-figure amount of migrants
04:47enters the country through the asylum back door. And in additional major cities were through family
04:54reunification. Most of them from Muslim tribal cultures. Germany, after Colombia, is the country that
05:03has lived with 2.7 million refugees. More than Colombia that has taken in the most refugees in the world.
05:16I ask myself, why is that actually? Why have you accepted the most refugees in the world?
05:22Why are you doing that? You don't need all that. And in Germany, there live more than one million refugees
05:30whose asylum applications have been refused more than once. What are these people actually
05:36still doing in this country? They belong deported.
05:43So Michaela, calling for people to be deported there, what's your reaction to what Alice Weidel said there?
05:50Well, first of all, the key figure is the proportion of refugees and migrants that countries take in.
05:56And there you have countries like Lebanon, who are way ahead of Germany on that benchmark.
06:02So, you know, just to fact-check that one. On the whole issue of people who don't have a status
06:08to
06:08stay in Germany, Germany has a provision where asylum is an individual right. So every case is decided
06:15upon individually. And that also leaves open the possibility for every individual to go into the legal
06:22process. So sending people back, even though they don't have a status to stay here, is very difficult.
06:29Having said that, the MAPS government has been successful in bringing the number of arrivals down.
06:34It's also started sending people back. So there are some successes that they can point to.
06:41What the AFD is saying that there should be mass remigration, but leaving open the question how
06:49they want to organize that so it's in accordance with existing German law. I'll just leave that there.
06:54So that's a tricky one. It's a very emotive issue. What Friedrich Merz did do, though, ahead of those
07:00regional elections that his party so lost, he basically said that the migration issue was off the table,
07:05that it was no longer an election issue, which was plainly not the case, certainly in that election.
07:11Saxony Anhalt. And we have more regional elections coming up in also another former eastern state,
07:17Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, but also here in Berlin, where that very much is still on people's minds when
07:23they go and vote. Now, the chancellor did hit back at Alice Weidel's criticism. You mentioned the
07:31language he used earlier. Let's just take a listen to what he said about the AFD's policy of remigration,
07:37which, as you said, means returning migrants to their home. But ladies and gentlemen,
07:43millions of people with migration background work in the skilled trades. And should what you propagate
07:50here become true? Namely, remigration, which is nothing else than ethnic cleansing of the skilled
07:56trades according to skin color and origins. Nothing else, ladies and gentlemen. The word remigration is
08:03nothing other than the synonym for ethnic cleansing according to origin and skin color.
08:14As you said, Michaela, immigration is still a really, really hot topic. It's a very divisive
08:21topic. Do you think Mertz's comeback was effective there?
08:28Well, I'm not sure whether he's going to be able to maintain what he just accused the AFD of,
08:38because there is no official so far who's spoken of large-scale remigration by force.
08:47Yeah. So this is a very tough accusation to make. It puts him in a position where he needs to
08:55prove to
08:56the AFD that their migration stance goes beyond what is legal under international law. There are some
09:05serious question marks about that. But it also shows how highly emotive this is. Alice Weidel also,
09:13in her speech earlier, spoke of Syrians who were basically harassing Germans and were then rewarded
09:21by receiving social security. And it's more kind of that attitude towards foreigners, anyone with migratory
09:29routes, that he was getting at there, both within the rank and file, lower rank and file, medium to lower
09:37rank and file of the far-right alternative for Germany, but certainly what it tolerates amongst its
09:42followers. And that is what many people in Saxony-Anhalt are now afraid of, who look different, who also
09:51are potentially from the LGBTQ community. There is just a fear that extreme voices are now emboldened by
09:59this far-right AFD election victory. But I'm not sure whether this accusation isn't going to
10:05haunt the German Chancellor, because now he has to prove that he was right in the full definition of
10:13that accusation. Let's talk about Ukraine, because there was also some heated exchanges about the
10:20government's policy in Ukraine. Let's take a listen to Friedrich Merz again.
10:26This is a grotesque reversal of perpetrator and victim.
10:32Your reaction to that, Michaela, the back and forth between Friedrich Merz and Alice Weidel on
10:36the war in Ukraine and Germany's involvement?
10:41Yes, well, he was also more specific. He accused the AFD of being suspiciously silent when it came to
10:48that foiled hybrid war attack, that drone attack on Leipzig airport. Whenever there is an element of a
10:55hybrid war by Russia, the AFD goes silent, he said. It's clear that there is a major fault line here
11:03in
11:03terms of policy, but also outlook on Russia. Alice Weidel called for the gas exports by Russia to
11:11Germany to be restarted again and to drop sanctions. That's AFD policy officially. And that's where
11:22Friedrich Merz, also the day after these elections, but today again, essentially accused the AFD of
11:28speaking for Russia and implementing Russian policies. He said that, after all, that's what
11:34Russia is most afraid of, of Western democracy, of the European project. And there we also heard
11:42Alice Weidel being Eurosceptics, stopping short of calling for Germany to leave the European Union. But
11:51slogans, and she did say this today, like, we want our money back. And that sounds somewhat familiar,
11:57doesn't it? That's straight copy paste from the Brexit campaign. Alice Weidel struck a very,
12:04very confident tone. Is the AFD vulnerable in any way? I mean, Matt did hit back, he did attack back,
12:16but were his criticisms and his attacks effective? And did it, did they expose any vulnerabilities in the
12:23AFD's stance? The answer somewhat lies in your question, because clearly, the German Chancellor
12:32today chose to argue over policy and subject matter, when the criticism of him and his role and his tone,
12:42that also is seen as having contributed to this election defeat, is that he lacks the charisma,
12:49the warmth, the warmth, the ability to communicate to people, to be reassuring and to tell a positive
12:55story of where he wants to go. And I think it's really interesting to see that today he chose that
13:02defensive route and that route of attack on certain policy issues, when clearly what he's dealing with
13:08is a feeling for change. And that is something that Alice Weidel also tapped into in her speech there
13:15today. So, at the very end, he also quoted a theologian from Western Germany, when he's facing
13:24another regional election for his party, but the Social Democrats are being, going to be up against it,
13:31against the far-right alternative for Germany, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. Well,
13:35that's the former East. The church really doesn't play a big role there. He may be a very spiritual
13:41person, but many people there aren't. So, he missed an opportunity here to really strike a different
13:48tone that resonates more with those people he needs to reach fast to prevent the AFD from continuing
13:57on that upward rise. And that's where he stands. A chancellor, yes, who has a majority, who still
14:05has almost three years to go, and who is also facing criticism from within his own camp, that he may
14:15not
14:16have the skills to communicate with people that it takes to be a chancellor. So, let's wait after that
14:24next election. And those voices of criticism may well get a lot louder. There's already too much
14:29there behind closed doors to be completely ignored. So, given what you've just said,
14:34who won today's confrontation? Were there any winners?
14:43No, I think, I would say that Friedrich Merz probably scored an own goal by accusing the AFD of
14:53something that's very hard to prove, which is that very heavy accusation of ethnic cleansing,
15:01because that insulted the people who voted for the AFD in these regional elections. And here,
15:08I think, lies the big risks he keeps taking, that he says things that individual voters who may have made
15:15their cross with the far-right AFD, but who don't really believe in all of their policies, particularly on
15:23migration, they may feel insulted now, and that could help, that could cause exactly what he's trying to stop.
15:31So, I'd say it's, it was pretty equal in terms of debate, but the clear winner going into this today,
15:39of course, was Alice Weider, the co-leader of the far-right AFD, which did win a historic victory, yes,
15:47in a very
15:48small state here in Germany, but sometimes there are these moments in history where something that is
15:55small in numbers tells a lot about the bigger picture. Michaela Kufner, DW's Chief Political Editor,
16:00thank you so much for that analysis.
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