Thousands rally against AfD at party congress in Erfurt

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The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s annual congress started Saturday in the city of Erfurt with thousands of protesters gathered against the rising German far-right movement.

The demonstrators sought to blockade roads used to access the conference, local police said, though this did not prevent the event from starting on time. Video footage posted to social media showed police clashing with a group of protesters flying antifa flags.

“To the troublemakers out there at the door: you won’t bring us down — quite the opposite, we’re only getting stronger and bigger,” the AfD’s national co-leader Alice Weidel said in a speech.

The AfD finished in second with just over 20 percent of the vote in the last German federal elections and is now Germany’s most popular party according to polling . It is positioned to win in two key state elections which will take place in September in eastern Germany. Other parties, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives, have kept a so-called “firewall” in place to keep the AfD out of federal government despite its electoral results.

Some of its European ideological allies, like the French National Rally, have also cut ties with the German far-right party which it deemed to be too extremist.

Widersetzen, an anti-AfD group which organized the protests, said 17,000 people had taken part in the demonstrations. “Who’s making the headlines today: US. Who’s hiding in glass-walled halls: the fascists of the AfD,” the organization wrote in a post on Instagram , “the demonstrations are a formidable counterforce. We’re ready to stand up for social justice.”