New anti-far-right protest draws 200,000 in Munich

BERLIN: Fresh protests against the extreme right drew massive crowds in Germany on Saturday, including more than 200,000 people in Munich, authorities said.

The latest rallies came after an estimated 160,000 people marched in Berlin last weekend to protest recent overtures by Germany’s conservatives to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of fraught elections this month.

Munich police initially put the turnout for the latest demonstration, dubbed “Munich is multicolour”, at 100,000 people, then upped their estimate to more than 200,000 shortly after it began. With legislative elections two weeks away, demonstrators rallied under the slogan “democracy needs you”, warning against any party working together with the AfD.

Germany has long had an unwritten rule against working with the far right, dating back to the aftermath of the horrors wrought by the Nazis in World War II. But protesters say the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the frontrunner for the February 23 vote, breached that so-called “firewall” by seeking the AfD’s support in parliament for an anti-immigration bill. Organisers, who put the turnout at 320,000, said the Munich march aimed to send a “strong signal in favour of diversity, human dignity, cohesion and democracy”. Protesters on Munich’s famed

Theresienwiese, a sprawling esplanade in the city centre, carried placards attacking CDU leader Friedrich Merz, bearing messages such as “Shame on you!” Another protest in the northern city of Hanover drew 24,000 people, according to police. The CDU has ruled out forming a government with the AfD, which is polling in second place ahead of the elections.