German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Europe to defend its core values ​​of "democracy and freedom" in the face of mounting protests on Saturday, 9 November, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall that ended at the Iron Curtain on the Old Continent.

"The values ​​that underlie Europe, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and the preservation of human rights are not self-evident" and "must always be defended" - it is ensured in the chapel of the Reconciliation, one of the memorial places of the division of the city, which lasted from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989. The chapel is built on the ground of an old church destroyed under the communist dictatorship East German because it was in the no man's land area between the two parts of the city.

"In the future, we must commit" to defend the values ​​of Europe, added the Chancellor, while the model of liberal democracy is increasingly questioned in the world, but also in a to some extent on the continent itself.

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Some Eastern European countries, such as Hungary or Poland, pioneers in the fight against the communist dictatorship in the 1980s, are today accused by the European Union of not fully respecting the rules of the European Union. Right wing state.

International tensions

Everywhere, the temptation of nationalism is perceptible in opinions.

"Liberal democracy is disputed and questioned," Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a speech in the presence of the presidents of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, four countries that had once prepared the field at the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"November 9 reminds us that we must fight hate, racism and anti-Semitism," said the Chancellor. This day also marks in Germany the anniversary of the 1938 Crystal Night during which the Nazis burned the country's synagogues.

The fall of the Wall had taken place following a peaceful revolution and the images of Germans exulting with joy and falling into each other's arms had traveled around the world.

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The pickaxe in this 150-kilometer-long concrete building marked the end of a world cut in two during the Cold War, and at the time hoped for a long era of relaxation and unity. These hopes have now been dissipated, with a resurgence of the Cold War between Westerners on the one hand, Russians and Chinese on the other.

With AFP