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CDU leader Friedrich Merz
Photo: IMAGO/Political Moments
They block roads and airports or stick to art: CDU leader Friedrich Merz is now pushing for a tougher approach against the climate activists of the "last generation".
The Union faction in the Bundestag is preparing a request to the Federal Ministry of the Interior about possible club bans in the organization's environment, said Merz on Wednesday on the news channel Welt.
It's about clubs around the activists of the "last generation" who "no longer have anything to do with climate and freedom of demonstration," said Merz.
"These are criminals."
A club ban is only a first step, explained Merz.
"We have to deal with these attitudes and simply say: These people are completely wrong with what they are doing." The activists endangered human lives and "the coexistence of our country" and divided society, said the CDU leader.
The »last generation« has been demonstrating for a radical change in climate almost every day for almost a year - with blockades on streets where activists stick themselves to the roadway, but also in museums, football stadiums, ministries and on the runways of airports.
For better climate protection, the group is calling for a speed limit of 100 km/h on motorways, a nine-euro ticket and a general move away from fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal.
FDP boss and Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner also sharply criticized the "last generation".
He called the actions of the climate protection group "extremely dangerous".
The next step would be to relativize democracy, he warned in the new episode of his podcast "CL +", which will be published this Thursday.
In it, Lindner talks to the former Federal President Joachim Gauck.
Lindner called the actions of the demonstrators, who blocked highways and airports, a "form of self-empowerment and self-aggrandizement" and criticized: "There is a group that has a legitimate concern.
Agreed.
But there are other legitimate concerns.” This one group declared theirs to be the most important.
If you continue that, you will end up with an “almost authoritarian model of society”.
A "group of initiates" tell a majority what is good and right.
sol/dpa/AFP
