Berlin
After Lindner’s speech to farmers, the Left demands the minister’s resignation
Party leader Janine Wissler (The Left)
© Joerg Carstensen / DPA
The farmers’ protests against the traffic light government’s policies reached their peak in Berlin on Monday. Finance Minister Lindner was greeted with boos. However, he saw the culprits for the cuts in a completely different place.
Left leader Janine Wissler said after the speech by the Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner (FDP) called for the minister’s resignation at the farmers’ demonstration in Berlin. A federal minister who stands in front of protesting farmers and “doesn’t make a single suggestion about their concerns, but instead agitates against the unemployed and refugees” is not only rightly booed, but is “unbearable as a minister,” she told “Spiegel”.
Wissler sees agitation and a distraction debate
Lindner addressed the crowd at the large demonstration by farmers against the federal government’s policies on Monday at the Brandenburg Gate. He defended the cut in the diesel subsidy for farmers, but also said: “It annoys me that I, as the hard-working middle class, have to talk about cuts in front of you, while on the other hand in our country people get money for doing nothing.” He then spoke about cuts in benefits for asylum seekers and citizens’ benefits.
Lindner is leading a diversionary debate and trying to play people off against each other and incite them, Wissler told “Spiegel” according to the advance report on Tuesday. “This is politically irresponsible and humanly disgusting.” Anyone who promotes social division and loss of solidarity in this situation in order to distract from the government’s failures has “completely lost their compass.”