During Merz’s speech, the audience left the hall

Protest at awards ceremony

As Merz spoke, the audience left the hall

At the integration awards ceremony in Berlin, a scandal broke out during Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s speech. Some guests defiantly left the hall.

There was a scandal surrounding Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the awards ceremony in Berlin. In protest against the CDU chairman’s “city view” statement, several people demonstratively left the hall at the start of the Chancellor’s speech on the issue of integration.

After Merz appeared on the stage to award the Talisman Prize for Social Cohesion from the Deutschlandstiftung Integration, around 30 scholarship recipients left the hall. They wore stickers that read “We are the cityscape” and positioned themselves at the entrance area to take photos together. They only returned to their seats after the 20 minute speech.

Video from the event shows Merz continuing his speech as guests leave the hall.

Merz said at a meeting in mid-October that the federal government was correcting previous failures in migration policy and making progress, “but of course we still face this problem, and that is why the Federal Minister of the Interior is now in the process of enabling and implementing repatriation on a very large scale.” Only a week later he explained more specifically: The problems were caused by migrants who did not have permanent resident status, did not work and did not follow the rules. Merz received harsh criticism for this statement.

The Chancellor appreciated the commitment of those who attended the awards ceremony. “They are role models for many young people, as we said, with migrant backgrounds,” said the Chancellor. “They show that these efforts are not in vain.” Most of them have to try harder than people from non-immigrant backgrounds and are subjected to objections because of their name or appearance, rather than being judged on their character or abilities.

“Germany is an immigration country,” stressed the Chancellor. Without immigration, the history of the Federal Republic would have been written differently, not better, but worse. At the same time, Merz emphasized that immigration must be designed and controlled.