Thuringia's Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow has warned his party against making common cause with right-wing extremists in the planned protests against rising energy prices.
He was referring to statements made by Sören Pellmann, the East German commissioner for the Left Party's parliamentary group in the Bundestag, who had called for "Monday demos in the East like back then against Hartz IV".
"The left is fighting for an effective protective shield over all options, in the Bundestag and Bundesrat," Ramelow told the editorial network Germany (Tuesday).
“In the case of social protests, however, please observe the rule of distance from right-wing extremist organizers.
The right-wing have rightly been criticized for usurping the symbolism of the Monday demonstrations.”
Party leader Martin Schirdewan defended his party's call for protests against the planned gas levy.
Concerns that this could divide society, he rejected in the ARD "Tagesthemen": "Those who divide society are the parties represented in the federal government by implementing anti-social policies that are primarily at the expense of the majority of the population .
That there is displeasure among the population is quite natural.
We on the left are striving to organize a hot autumn against the social indifference of the federal government.”