The co-chair of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party called for mass deportations of immigrants, as part of the launch of the party's electoral program for next month's national elections. In an impassioned speech to supporters in the small town of Riesa, in eastern Germany's Saxony, Alice Weidel said that under the leadership of the AfD — which is second in the polls, with a record roughly 20% of intentions to vote — Germany will see «large-scale repatriations.» Weidel, the AfD's candidate for chancellor in the election, used the controversial term «remigration» to describe the policy. The word was coined by Austrian right-wing ideologue Martin Sellner, who defines «remigration» as the forced removal of immigrants who break the law or «refuse to integrate,» regardless of their citizenship status — an idea that critics see as akin to ethnic cleansing. On Saturday, Weidel said: «I have to tell you honestly: if it's called remigration, then it's called remigration.» This was met with loud applause from party delegates, who repeatedly chanted «Alice für Deutschland» — a play on words inspired by the banned Nazi-era slogan «Alles für Deutschland» (All for Germany). Weidel, a former Goldman Sachs analyst, has positioned herself as the more presentable face of a party that includes ultra-radicals classified as right-wing extremists by Germany's domestic intelligence agency. Earlier this week, in a joint appearance on Platform X with Elon Musk, Weidel used this unprecedented public platform to argue that the AfD — which also promotes normalizing relations with Moscow and scrapping wind turbines — has become a force main policy. However, the party has little chance of coming to power in the upcoming elections, as all other major parties in Germany have ruled out entering into a coalition with the AfD.
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