Debate on France riots
Armin Laschet’s AfD Zoff in the Bundestag goes viral
“This is about criminal young people and not about foreigners”: Armin Laschet in the session of the German Bundestag on the violent clashes in France
© Christoph Hardt / Picture Alliance
During the Bundestag debate on the unrest in France, Armin Laschet violently attacked the AfD. The former candidate for Chancellor of the Union then posted a video of his speech on Twitter – which has since been viewed millions of times.
“The AfD abused the unrest in France in the Bundestag today to incite hatred against people with an immigrant background in Germany,” Laschet wrote about the video. “Violence is unacceptable. We stand by the side of the French police. But hate speech and division are poisoning our country. The AfD is a threat to internal peace.”
Armin Laschet attacks AfD in the Bundestag
Laschet had a violent exchange of blows with the AfD in parliament on Thursday. In his speech, too, he accused the right-wing populists of using the debate, which was supposed to be about the problems in France, where the death of 17-year-old Nahel by a police bullet, triggered violent clashes with the police, looting and arson attacks, for their own abusing anti-foreigner agenda in Germany.
“The topic is: ‘Unrest in France’, but you hardly ever put the word France in your mouth,” Laschet said in the direction of the AfD parliamentary group. “We didn’t talk about France here. They didn’t talk about the origin of the problem here. Instead, they spoke straight away about parallel societies in Germany.”
During his appearance, which was repeatedly interrupted by loud heckling from the AfD ranks, Laschet made it clear that the majority of the protesters in France were not foreigners, but French. “This is about young criminals and not about foreigners,” the CDU politician called out to the right-wing opposition party.
The AfD had previously cited immigration as the main reason for the riots in France: “This explosion of immigrant violence is a glimpse into Germany’s future,” warned the domestic spokesman for the AfD faction, Gottfried Curio. Laschet’s party colleague Philipp Amthor then accused the party in his speech of using the unrest for their migration policy ideas. Lamya Kaddor from the Greens complained that the division in French society was a consequence of the fact that right-wing slogans had become “socially acceptable” there in recent years. The migration policy spokeswoman for the left-wing faction, Gökay Akbulut, called for additional money for education as a lesson for Germany in order to combat inequality.