- Two xenophobic attacks left nine dead near Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday evening. And it is not the first in recent months.
- In early February, for the first time, CDU elected officials of Angela Merkel from the far right of the AfD joined forces in Thuringia.
- The German political context is therefore tense, but the democratic forces remain powerful, say the specialists interviewed by 20 Minutes .
Nine people died in two attacks near Frankfurt, in two shisha bars in Hanau. If the investigation has only just begun, the xenophobic nature of these attacks now makes little doubt, especially after the discovery of a letter of claim from the main suspect.
This is not the first racist attack in recent months in Germany: a synagogue in Halle was attacked in October, an elected official who had welcomed migrants was assassinated in June ... The German political climate is tense. 20 Minutes tried to see more clearly.
Are far-right attacks new to Germany?
"It is normal to be worried when the far right shows up again in Germany but the phenomenon is not new," said Jérôme Vaillant at 20 Minutes . Professor Emeritus of German Civilization at the University of Lille, director of Germany today believes that the risk has been "neglected in recent years by German intelligence, compared to the risk of the far left. Today we have the elements to see that far-right groups are reforming. ”
The specialist of the extreme right in Europe, Jean-Yves Camus, whom 20 Minutes also questioned, does not entirely agree: “German intelligence has a very rigorous monitoring of the ultra-right. But it has always acted thanks to small, very mobile groups which are difficult to intercept. "The specialist cites the case of a dozen murders, in particular of Germans of Turkish origin, in the early 2000s:" For a long time the police believed in vicious acts when it was a small neo-Nazi group that blended in well with the landscape: the NSU. "
Why is the current context more worrying?
If, as Jean-Yves Camus says, violent acts from the far right have not necessarily been correlated with successes of far right parties in the ballot box, this time difficult to forget the fact that for the first time since 1945 there are deputies and deputies from the far right, from the AfD party, in the Bundestag. Or not to think about this very first alliance between elected and elected officials of the classic right (CDU, Angela Merkel's party) and the AfD to elect a liberal president at the head of the Land of Thuringia ( former East Germany).
"What happened in Thuringia, even if it ended in failure, since the elected president resigned, necessarily has a ripple effect", judge Jérôme Vaillant, who also thinks that the attacks which follow one another can give ideas to people "balanced or not". "Another worrying signal, says Jean-Yves Camus: about fifteen people linked to the far right were arrested last week, including a police officer. Soldiers too. "We suspect this group, by the name of" hard core ", to prepare attacks against mosques or against migrants," adds the academic from Lille.
Can the extreme right take advantage of it?
“Until then, even the most right-wing officials of the CDU-CSU had not envisaged an alliance with the AfD. But there is no longer really this "mental restriction" ", describes Jean-Yves Camus. He continues: “What changes compared to previous waves of violence is the enormous impact of the wave of migrants arriving in 2015. It freed xenophobic discourse. The Monday evening demonstrations of Pegida in Leipzig which gathered up to 20,000 people. These were average right-wing voters who already thought that before. The AfD has intelligently recovered these people. And then there is a hatred of Chancellor Merkel. "
"The Thuringian affair gives the feeling to the extreme right that it is on the rise and that there is a fault in which to rush, blows Jérôme Vaillant. The AfD will try to make the CDU understand that it is now impossible to govern without them. This is in a context where the future of the post-Merkel party for the September 2021 elections seems uncertain.
But our two specialists qualify: “Angela Merkel has always stood firm on principles. And it's not just a strategy, ”judges Jean-Yves Camus. And, indeed, in the Thuringian affair, it severely judged the behavior of its troops in the land. Also, "faced with the rise of the extreme right, the Germans who are deeply democratic take to the streets," recalls Jérôme Vaillant. This was the case, spontaneously, on February 5, after the surprise election of a liberal, Thomas Kemmerich, at the head of Thuringia thanks to the voices of the AfD. This is also what prompted him to resign the next day. “Far-right demonstrations have always been closely followed by democratic demonstrations. We must trust them, ”says the Lille academic.
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