Protests against German conservatives after vote with far right

BERLIN — Protesters in Germany on Thursday rallied against the conservative CDU Party to decry its cooperation with the far-right AfD in pushing through parliament a motion to demand a crackdown on immigration.

Centre-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Greens and multiple civil society and church groups denounced the vote as a breach of a taboo in post-war Germany against any cooperation with extremist parties.

About 6,000 people rallied outside CDU Party headquarters, the Konrad Adenauer House in Berlin, police said, to voice their opposition to the breach of the "firewall" that had so far isolated the anti-immigration AfD party.

The rally organisers, the alliance "Together Against the Right", said that 13,000 people had taken part.

"It is unbelievable that the CDU is helping right-wing extremists gain political power," said protest co-organiser Carolin Moser.

She argued that the CDU, instead of shunning the far-right party, "is rolling out the red carpet" for them and had helped make "the AfD's right-wing extremism socially acceptable".

A group of about 30 activists stormed a smaller CDU party bureau in the capital's Charlottenburg district and vandalised furniture, but without causing injuries, said police.

Police said they filed three reports on charges including property damage and trespassing.

Thousands also took to the streets in the eastern city of Dresden, where CDU Party leader Friedrich Merz was holding a campaign event ahead of February 23 elections.

Participants at the street demonstrations held up signs that read "Shame on you", "Friedrich Merz is a security risk for our democracy" and "We are the firewall".

Merz said that "part of our freedom is that we are of course allowed to demonstrate".

"But those who are blocking trams this evening, damaging the CDU district offices and paralysing the Adenauer House in Berlin are overdoing this right to demonstrate."

He urged the Social Democrats and Greens "to call for moderation, for restraint, and for us in the political centre of our country to reach agreement on the key issues that we have to discuss and decide together".