German Chancellor cancels call to Trump  after message to far right

Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz,  cancelled  a phone call to President Trump and accused  the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) of seeking “ethnic cleansing” with its “remigration” drive, after the nativist party’s seismic weekend victory in a state election.

In his first public confrontation with the AfD since Sunday’s shock outcome in Saxony-Anhalt, Merz said that the far-right party would take an axe to one of the pillars of the German economy with a racist campaign of mass deportations.

“The term ‘remigration’ is nothing but a synonym for ethnic cleansing based on origin and skin color,” he said on Wednesday to applause from the other parties in the Bundestag lower house.

In a fiery speech addressed to the AfD parliamentary group, Merz said millions of working immigrants were crucial to German society.

“If those working in Germany have to leave the country again because you are championing ‘remigration’,” Merz said, “then the skilled trades in Germany will no longer be able to function: not a single care home will remain open, not a single hospital in Germany will remain operational, and not a single restaurant in Germany will be able to stay in business.”

He said the AfD’s rhetoric, which propelled it to the strongest showing for a far-right party in a German state since the Nazi period, “is precisely what is dividing our society so deeply”.

In the election, the party rode an international wave of populism, nationalism and discontent with mainstream parties, underscored overnight by congratulations from Donald Trump.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump hailed the AfD’s “really big night” in Saxony-Anhalt. “They finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly,” Trump wrote.

Merz responded by cancelling a planned phone call with Trump.