German far-right party sets up its new youth wing as thousands protest

GIESSEN, Germany (AP) – A confident far-right Alternative for Germany set up its new youth organization on Saturday even as thousands of protesters converged on the western city of Giessen, where the party held its meeting, some of them clashing with police.

A convention of the anti-immigration party, known by its German acronym AfD, started more than two hours late after groups of protesters blocked or tried to block roads in and around the city of around 93,000, delaying many delegates’ arrival.

Officers used pepper spray after stones were thrown at them at one location, police said. They also used water cannons to clear a blockade by about 2,000 protesters after they ignored calls to leave. They did so again Saturday afternoon as a group tried to break through barriers toward the city’s convention center. Police said up to 5,000 officers were deployed, and 10 to 15 were slightly injured.

Many people demonstrated peacefully. The regional government’s interior minister, Roman Poseck, condemned the violence and put the total number of demonstrators at between 25,000 and 30,000.

AfD’s leaders assailed the protests as the meeting opened. “What is being done out there – dear left-wingers, dear extremists, you need to look at yourselves – is something that is deeply undemocratic,” party co-leader Alice Weidel said.

She said that one AfD lawmaker was attacked. Police said that a lawmaker had been injured near Giessen but didn’t give details.

The new youth organization’s predecessor, the Young Alternative, a largely autonomous group with relatively loose links to the party, was dissolved at the end of March after AfD decided to formally cut ties with it.

AfD wants to have much closer oversight over the new group, named Generation Germany and open to all party members under 36, whose statute was approved Saturday.

AfD finished second in Germany’s national election in February with over 20% of the vote and is now the biggest opposition party. The party, with which mainstream parties refuse to work, has continued to rise in polls as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition government has failed to impress voters.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency had concluded that the Young Alternative was a proven right-wing extremist group. It later classified AfD itself as such a group, but suspended the designation after AfD launched a legal challenge.

In a ruling last year rejecting a call for an injunction against the Young Alternative designation, a Cologne court argued that preserving an ethnically defined German people and the exclusion if possible of the “ethnically foreign” was a central political idea of the group.

It also pointed to agitation against migrants and asylum-seekers, and links with extremist groups such as the Identitarian Movement. In June, a higher court ended the appeal process, noting that the Young Alternative had been dissolved.

AfD’s other co-leader, Tino Chrupalla, said the party must learn from past mistakes.

“Some benefited from the young, from their ability to mobilize, but didn’t have the well-being and future of this youth sufficiently in sight,” he said. “We should have taken more care of the young new hopes in our party; it will be different in the future.” He added that the young activists must “put themselves at the party’s service.”

It’s typical for German parties to have youth wings, which are generally more politically radical than the parent parties. It remains to be seen whether the new AfD youth organization will be more moderate than its predecessor, with at least some continuity expected.

Jean-Pascal Hohm, a 28-year-old state lawmaker from the eastern region of Brandenburg, was elected unopposed as Generation Germany’s leader. He told delegates he had been the “proud chairman” of the Young Alternative in his home state. Hohm is considered a right-wing extremist by the regional branch of the domestic intelligence agency, a designation he rejects as politically motivated, German news agency dpa reported.

Kevin Dorow, a delegate from northern Germany, said he also was previously active in his local Young Alternative branch.

“The new formation means above all continuing what the Young Alternative started – being a training ground, attracting young people … and above all bringing them into politics for the good of the party,” in which they could take on offices at some point, he said. He said he hadn’t seen any “drift in a radical direction” in the Young Alternative.

AfD portrays itself as an anti-establishment force at a time of low trust in politicians. It first entered the national parliament in 2017 following the arrival of large numbers of migrants in the mid-2010s. Curbing migration remains its signature theme, but it has shown a talent for capitalizing on discontent about other issues too. That was reflected in leaders’ confident tone Saturday.

Five of Germany’s 16 states hold regional elections next year. Two are in the ex-communist east, where the party is strongest.

“We will get the majority of mandates; we will provide our first governor,” Weidel said.

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Geir Moulson reported from Berlin. Martin Meissner contributed to this report from Giessen.

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This story has been corrected to show that the regional interior minister’s assessment of the number of demonstrators was 25,000-30,000, not 25,000-35,000.