Call to use guns on illegal migrants sharpens German debate

Frauke Petry"Professor Hajo Funke, a politics specialist at Berlin Free University, said the strategy, with its reference to violence, could backfire even though many voters are uneasy about Germany’s ability to cope with so many newcomers."

Last updated: February 1, 2016 7:33 pm

Call to use guns on illegal migrants sharpens German debate

Stefan Wagstyl in Berlin

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/1998d35c-c8ff-11e5-be0b-b7ece4e953a0.html#axzz3z0WC46x4

A rightwing German politician’s suggestion that police must “if necessary use firearms” to stop migrants illegally crossing the border has sharpened the national debate over migration ahead of key regional elections.

Frauke Petry, the combative co-leader of the Alternative für Deutschland, the populist German party, sought to qualify her remarks on Monday.

But — intentionally or not — they appeared to enhance the party’s immigration-sceptic credentials as it campaigns in regional elections that are rapidly turning into a referendum on chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policy.

Despite leadership disputes, the AfD is scoring up to 12 per cent in national polls, making it Germany’s third most popular grouping after Ms Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the social democrats.

In her contentious remarks to the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper, 40-year-old Ms Petry said: “Police must stop migrants crossing illegally from Austria, and, if necessary, use firearms. That is what the law says.”

She added: “I don't want this either, but the use of armed force is there as a last resort.”

In a statement released on Monday, Ms Petry and her fellow co-leader Jörg Meuthen insisted the party was not advocating any change in the law and was “strictly” against shooting people seeking “a peaceful entry” into Germany.

But political rivals pounced on Ms Petry’s words, with the SPD chief Sigmar Gabriel urging the domestic security service, which monitors anti-democratic groupings, to place the AfD under formal watch. Armin Laschet, a CDU deputy chairman, condemned her comments as “an assault on the constitution”.

Ms Petry appeared to be trying to toughen the party’s image in advance of assembly elections on March 13 in three regions — Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate in the west, and Saxony-Anhalt in the former Communist east.

Professor Hajo Funke, a politics specialist at Berlin Free University, said the strategy, with its reference to violence, could backfire even though many voters are uneasy about Germany’s ability to cope with so many newcomers.

But an SPD adviser thought otherwise, saying: “It won’t damage her at all. It emphasises very clearly the issue that voters care about — law and order on the borders.”

Chancellor feels strain as splinter group calls for tighter border controls

The AfD was founded in the midst of Europe’s debt crisis as an anti-euro party. Its recent revival is a far cry from last summer, when the party was floundering, with the leadership split and support below 5 per cent. Ms Petry and her allies had just driven out Bernd Lucke, the party’s bookish founder, abandoned his caution over immigration and lurched sharply to the right.

The shift came just in time to capitalise on concern about the late-summer surge in migration and the outrage over the Cologne New Year’s eve sexual assaults, in which immigrants are the chief suspects.

“Political developments have played right into our hands,” said Hugh Bronson, an AfD Berlin regional official.

Ms Petry has established herself as a dynamic leader. Born in the Communist GDR, she moved to western Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, took a science degree at the University of Reading in Britain and a doctorate in Germany. She established a chemicals business in Leipzig and had four children with her pastor husband before separating from him last year in favour of a relationship with an AfD MEP, Marcus Pretzell.

While the AfD is blaming the storm over Ms Petry’s comments on “an unfortunate communication”, she is not the only top party figure to talk of police shooting at migrants.

Mr Pretzell last year spoke of firearms as “the last resort” of the border police. This weekend, Beatrix von Storch, an AfD deputy chairman, said on Facebook that women and children should, in emergencies, be stopped at the border with guns. She later explained she meant only the women, not the children.

Meanwhile, the party was slow to discipline controversial leaders such Bjorn Höcke, the charismatic party chief in the Thuringia region, who, in seemingly racist remarks last year, claimed over-large African families fuelled European migration. The national party rapped his knuckles but he remains in his post, his popularity undiminished.

Until now, the AfD’s electoral success has been concentrated in the former Communist east, where it scored 10-12 per cent in three regional polls in 2014. In western Germany, where populist parties tend to struggle, its best result was last year in Hamburg, with 6 per cent of the vote. But now it may have the chance of a breakthrough in the west.