Germany’s Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has called for the right-wing Alternative for Germany party (AfD) to be monitored, one day after its leader said border guards should shoot at migrants trying to illegally enter the country.
“With the AfD, there is massive doubt that they stand by the free democratic constitution of the republic,” Gabriel told the Sunday edition of the mass-circulation Bild tabloid.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s key coalition partner criticised AfD leader Frauke Petry’s comments on the use of firearms at borders, after she told a local newspaper on Saturday that ammunition should be used as a last resort to keep migrants out.
“This is not just about Petry’s weird demands, for example that all women should have at least three children,” he said, taking aim at AfD’s controversial family policy. “The lady also wants to have unarmed refugees shot at the German border.”
Gabriel’s centre-left Social Democrats already inked a position paper at the start of the year demanding that “the dangerous right-wing extremist tendencies in the AfD party and groups like Pegida” should be monitored under constitutional law.
The Pegida movement is closely linked to AfD and holds regular anti-asylum rallies.