Frankfurt (AFP)
German auto giant Volkswagen has apologized after running a commercial for its new Golf, which has drawn criticism from internet users for racism.
The 10-second video that appeared on the manufacturer's Instagram account on Tuesday shows a colored man wearing a suit, grabbed by a white hand in close-up that flicks him towards the interior of an establishment called "the little settler" ".
All to keep it away from a yellow Golf parked in front of the entrance.
Removed meanwhile from Instagram, the clip was still circulating on Twitter Wednesday.
"No doubt: the video is a mistake" and it is "in bad taste," reacted the Wolfsburg company on Wednesday in a statement sent to AFP.
The group says they understand the irritated reactions of many people who have viewed the clip and adds that it will "elucidate what may have happened" and "draw conclusions from it."
At the end of the clip appears a sequence of letters whose order suggests the word "negro".
"The context of our own company's history" means that "Volkswagen is taking a stand against all forms of racism, xenophobia and discrimination," said the group, which also apologized on Instagram.
Volkswagen was in the 1930s the favorite manufacturer of the Nazi regime in Germany.
The brand ("people's car") was created in 1937 by Ferdinand Porsche, on the initiative of the German Labor Front led by Adolf Hitler.
The company said it was "surprised" and "shocked" that this campaign "could be so misunderstood."
It is "not our impression that needs to be corrected, but your cooperation with racists," retorted a Twitter user.
© 2020 AFP