Merz’s ‘ethnic cleansing’ comments trigger defamation complaint from far-right AfD – POLITICO

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party said it had filed a defamation complaint against Chancellor Friedrich Merz over a speech in which he said its “remigration” plans amounted to “ethnic cleansing.”

“The insinuation that the AfD parliamentary group — which stands firmly on the grounds of the German constitution — is committed to ethnic cleansing, i.e. ultimately to expulsions and murders, is so clear that the judiciary must take action here,” Stephan Brandner, a senior AfD member of the Bundestag, said in a statement.

Merz made the comments during a Bundestag debate Wednesday. “’Remigration’ is nothing more than a synonym for ethnic cleansing based on origin and skin color,” he said, adding that the AfD’s migration crackdown would devastate the German economy.