The Guardian: Frauke Petry: the acceptable face of Germany’s new right?

But any attempts she makes to dismiss the far-right labels might seem hollow after the party’s recent announcement of a European alliance with the FPÖ. “True, our meeting with the FPÖ could be seen as moving the party to the right, but on the other hand the FPÖ is something you just cannot ignore from a German point of view because it’s so near in terms of language and political structure – it would be stupid not to talk to each other. We found similar characteristics with other parties, whether the Danish People’s party, the Swiss People’s party, the Sweden Democrats, the True Finns, also the Front National,” she says. [...]

Now that new arrivals have largely ceased – due to the closure of the Balkans route, the erection of fences and sealing of borders around Europe – the AfD has markedly shifted its campaign agenda to one of stopping the “Islamification” of Germany. [...]

Newspapers widely reported that Petry had advocated firing on refugees. Even the party’s unofficial organ, Compact, said Petry had not tried to withdraw the statement “perhaps because she recognises that 25% of Germans are in favour of deploying firearms, even on unarmed refugees”. For two days she failed to respond to her critics. Deputy AfD head and MEP Beatrix von Storch then added fuel to the fire by answering “yes” to a question on Facebook as to whether firearms should be used against women and children trying to cross the German border. [...]

The party’s relationship with the Dresden-based hardline protest movement Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West), which thinks nothing of demonstrating with mock-up models of Merkel in a noose, has come under much scrutiny, with the AfD often referred to as the group’s political arm, “which it never was,” Petry swiftly insists. But the overlaps are undeniable. Not only are the complaints of Pegida and AfD supporters very similar (everything from anti-Muslim sentiments to opposition to Russian sanctions, and even to Germany’s high television licence fee), many at the demonstrations who are often disillusioned Christian Democrats, desperately negative in their outlook, call the AfD their natural home.

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