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AfD embraces mass deportation of immigrants as German elections loom

AfD embraces mass deportation of immigrants as German elections loom

On Saturday, as its conference took place in the eastern Saxony town of Riesa, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) laid out ambitions to close Germany's borders, resume buying Russian gas and, in effect, dismantle the E.U. in, writes the BBC.

German media reported that the party's agreed manifesto includes plans to leave the Paris climate agreement, exit the euro and create a new confederation of states.

AfD leader Alice Weidel even publicly embraced the term "emigration" - a word widely understood to mean the mass "return" or deportation of people with a migrant background.


Thousands of anti-AfD protesters took to the streets in Riesa on Saturday, seeking to block access to the conference venue.

When Alice Weidel eventually took the stage, she described the activists outside as a "leftist crowd."

And, in front of a cheering conference room of delegates, he spoke of "large-scale repatriations".

"And I have to be honest with you: if it's going to be called re-immigration, then it's going to be: re-immigration," she said.

There were nationwide demonstrations against the AfD after it emerged that senior party figures had been among them at a meeting where "immigration" was said to have been discussed with Martin Sellner, an Austrian far-right activist with a neo-Nazi past.

Sellner has written about "immigrant" asylum seekers, some foreigners with the right of residence and "unassimilated" citizens.

A talking point on Europe's far right, some claim legal residents would not be forced to leave. Critics say "emigration" is just a euphemism for a blatantly racist mass deportation plan.

But Alice Weidel's decision to personally create the term, weeks after the federal snap election, shows her party's growing radicalism and confidence.

The AfD is consistently second in Germany and has won recent regional elections in the east of the country – where the party is strongest.

However, it is highly unlikely that it will win power because other parties will not work with the AfD.

Sections of the AfD have been classified by German intelligence as right-wing extremists. /Telegraph/