Much of the German national media is in an uproar after Chancellor Friedrich Merz connected problems with Germany’s “cityscape” and immigration.

At a press conference in Potsdam, Merz spoke about migration policy and his party’s strategy against the Alternative for Germany (AfD), stating they are “very far along” in confronting the AfD on the issue.

However, then the remark came that has the left attacking him.

“But of course we still have this problem in the cityscape and that is why the Federal Minister of the Interior is now making deportations possible on a very large scale,” said Merz.

The pro-migration left jumped on the comment, calling him a racist. Green Party leader Felix Banaszak considers Friedrich Merz to be “dangerous“ and “unworthy of a chancellor.”

The Green Party MEP Erik Marquardt stated that “the chancellor should apologize for this racist derailment.” He added that “calling people of different skin colors a ‘problem in the cityscape’ is simply racism. The fact that such a statement simply slips out of his mouth makes it clear.“

Former Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt, also with the Greens, only wrote on X: “Cityscape. I just can’t believe it.“

Green Party politician Andreas Audretsch wrote on X: “Friedrich Merz didn’t understand anything.” In a video, he stated that “Mr. Merz, you got stuck in another time.“

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), also a bitter rival of the CDU, comes at the issue from the totally opposite angle, blaming Merz for failing to fix the issues his party is largely responsible for. AfD politician Jörg Baumann stated, “Did Merz mean ‘this problem in the cityscape’”?

In a subsequent post, he said he was not writing to support Merz, and that he was in fact working to actively remove Merz from power.

Merz’s statement is being defended by some in his party as well as the news outlet Welt, which is considered close to the CDU.

“Anyone who considers this sentence from the chancellor to be an inadmissible exaggeration should take a walk through Duisburg, where the post office in the White Giant’s high-rise development temporarily stopped delivering parcels – for security reasons. Because the authorities do too little to combat crime and violence between different ethnic groups, some residents have decided to arm themselves. The Green Party leader Banaszak, who himself comes from Duisburg, apparently has the talent to close his eyes to these undesirable developments,” wrote Welt columnist Jan Philipp Burgard.

He continued, writing that “public order is not as eroded everywhere as in Duisburg, but all over Germany people are discussing changing the image of their city at the dining table, conference table or regulars’ table. Some seasoned men avoid walking home from the pub. Some women no longer go jogging in the park. According to the opinion research institute Ipsos, concerns about immigration will arise for the twelfth time in a row in September 2025 at the top of the ‘worry barometer.’”

The Ipsos poll not only shows that immigration is Germany’s top concern, but a large majority of Germans view Islam as a security threat. In another poll, a strong majority said there are too many Middle Eastern migrants in Germany. In that same poll, nearly half of respondents agreed with the statement: “I believe that Europeans are gradually being replaced by immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.”

Already in 2023, 64 percent of respondents said they want the country to take fewer migrants. The same poll showed that the same number, 64 percent, said that Germany faces more disadvantages than advantages when it comes to immigration.

A poll from last year found that 72 percent of respondents say it is right to carry out asylum procedures outside the EU’s external borders, while only 16 percent say the measure is wrong. The poll also showed that Germans are not only against illegal immigration, but want lower levels of all immigration, including legal immigrants. The poll shows 69 percent of respondents would like (rather) less migration to Germany, while only 11 percent would like (rather) more migration.

In other words, Merz’s “cityscape” comments are not far off the mark from what a majority of Germans think on the issue.

As Remix News reported, foreigners made up a record share of violent criminal offenders last year, according to crime data. Germans are feeling less and less safe.

Jan Philipp Burgard writes for Welt: “There are still around 220,000 people who live illegally in Germany and would have to be deported – the result of a historic loss of control that began 10 years ago and whose collateral damage is obvious. Foreigners in Germany are more than twice as involved in violent crime as Germans. Perpetrators from Muslim countries from Algeria to Afghanistan are particularly well represented in crime statistics.”

However, even deporting 220,000 illegal migrants is not necessarily going to seriously change the ongoing demographic transformation of Germany at a time when schools are in shambles, the German economy continues to teeter, and crime continues to soar. In addition, German citizens with a migration background are often the very children in classes causing serious problems, and they are often the suspects in serious crime case. This group cannot just be “deported away,” yet finding solutions to these difficult problems remains no easy task.

Merz, like Macron, may be throwing “red meat” to the right with such proclamations. His CDU is now losing out to the AfD in all major polls, which means he has to present a tough face on the issue of immigration — an issue that is not going away, regardless of how much the left screams “racism.”

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