Free Republic

Nothing that seems to make any sense on the surface or would appear to be what's commonly known as a 'next logical step' follows when you're talking about the mess that is the German government. Chancellor Friederich Merz's shaky coalition has only gotten wobblier in the past few months as Alice Weidel's Alternativ for Germany (AfD) party constinues to gain in popular support.After just six months in power, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition is facing infighting, policy deadlock and sliding poll ratings, undermining its efforts to take on the rising far right.It marks a difficult start for the conservative politician...

The German people are increasingly concerned about safety in public spaces compared to before the 2015 migrant crisis, which was imposed on the country by the Berlin establishment. Nearly half of German voters say they are personally concerned about their safety in public, according to the Deutschlandtrend survey by the Infratest Dimap opinion research institute, which surveyed 1,300 eligible voters between November 3 and 5. According to the survey, 48 per cent of Germans feel uneasy in parks, public squares, streets, or trains and buses. This represented nearly a 100 per cent increase over the past decade, the pollster noted....

Global investments in renewable energy aren't bearing fruit and the world should focus on securing reliable supplies of fossil fuels, U.S. energy and interior secretaries said this week as they worked on convincing Europe to buy more U.S. oil and gas. The U.S. has become Europe's top oil and gas supplier on the back of the U.S. shale boom and its companies are seeking to boost the share as the European Union moves to fully cut off remaining Russian energy imports. The message from U.S. officials at an energy conference in Athens this week highlights the shift in U.S. policy...

After New York City’s race for mayor catapulted Zohran Mamdani from state assembly member into one of the world’s most prominent progressive voices, intense debate swirled over the ideas at the heart of his campaign. His critics and opponents painted pledges such as free bus service, universal childcare and rent freezes as unworkable, unrealistic and exorbitantly expensive. But some have hit back, highlighting the quirk of geography that underpins some of this view. “He promised things that Europeans take for granted, but Americans are told are impossible,” said the Dutch environmentalist and former government adviser Alexander Verbeek in the wake...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is warning Syrian refugees to return to their country or else face deportation. The center-right leader said that following the end of the nation’s civil war, the approximately 1,000,000 Syrian refugees will be expected to repatriate. “There are now no longer any grounds for asylum in Germany, and therefore we can also begin with repatriations,” the chancellor said on Monday. “I will say it again: The civil war in Syria is over,” Merz emphasized. “There are now no longer any grounds for asylum in Germany.” If Syrian nationals who fled the violence of their country’s civil...

The coalition government of center-right Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and center-left Social Democrats (SPD), which has been in office since May 2025, is aiming to significantly increase the number of people who have been ordered to leave the country in the campaign they are calling a "repatriation offensive." However, the political and media debate has tended to focus on a different word: deportations. The dispute over deportations to Syria, a country devastated by a long civil war, shows just how difficult this undertaking is — and just how divergent opinions are, even among the two conservative Christian...

A shocking poll shows that two years after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre that murdered more than 1,200 Israelis, a majority of Palestinians still say the terror group was right to launch the attack — and, equally disturbing, an overwhelming 86 percent deny that Hamas committed the well-documented atrocities against civilians. According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), 53 percent of Palestinians say Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7 assault was correct; support is strongest in the West Bank at 59 percent, while 44 percent in the Gaza Strip back the attack — a...

German activist Naomi Seibt, dubbed by Europeans as the "Anti-Greta" has filed for political asylum in the U.S., claiming she’s being persecuted in her native country for her political views and advocacy of free speech. Seibt, 25, submitted her petition under Section 208 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, stating that returning to Germany would expose her to imprisonment or physical harm.

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), a German public-service television broadcaster, published a clarification on Monday regarding claims that the IDF struck an employee of a Palestinian Arab production company that worked in collaboration with the network A week ago, ZDF reported that an employee of the Arab company and the son of another employee were killed as a result of an IDF strike on Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip. The network wrote in a statement that it reached out to the IDF to demand answers regarding the circumstances of the deaths, and that the IDF provided unequivocal proof that the...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has doubled down on his recent comments about migrants and criminality, saying Germans and Europeans were "afraid to move around in public spaces."On a visit to Potsdam last week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz talked about how his government was toughening up its migration policy. The primary aim, he said, was to continue to combat what he called illegal immigration.Then he added another sentence, which has since caused a furor: "But we still have this problem in the cityscape, of course, and that's why the federal interior minister is facilitating and carrying out large-scale deportations."The offhand remark...

The Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced that Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is FAKE, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about Tariffs. The ad was for $75,000. They only did this to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, and other courts. TARIFFS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE NATIONAL SECURITY, AND ECONOMY, OF THE U.S.A. Based on their egregious behavior, ALL TRADE NEGOTIATIONS WITH CANADA ARE HEREBY TERMINATED. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT

The US has been secretly holding talks with Hamas for months Buzzfeed reported Thursday, despite its official stance that it would (not?) negotiate with the terrorist organization. “Our administration needed to hear from them that this unity government would move toward democratic elections, and toward a more peaceful resolution with the entire region,” a US official stated to the “social news” site, on condition of anonymity. “It was important to have that line of communication.” US officials have publicly denied the charges, however, leading to confusion over the report’s veracity. …

BRUSSELS (AP) — Germany on Wednesday pledged more than $2 billion in military aid for Ukraine, as the government in Kyiv signaled that it would need $120 billion in 2026 to stave off Russia's nearly four-year all-out war.Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Germany would buy $500 million worth of U.S. weapons for Ukraine under a new program to fast-track military equipment. Estonia, Finland, Lithuania and Sweden said that they would also participate in the funding initiative.Pistorius said that Germany's “package addresses a number of urgent requirements of Ukraine. It provides air defense systems, Patriot (missile) interceptors, radar systems and...

From Sunday, non-EU travelers entering Europe’s Schengen open-borders zone will be photographed and fingerprinted at border crossings, as the European Union rolls out its much-delayed automated border checks. The aim of the new system is to eventually replace the manual stamp on passports and secure better information-sharing between the bloc’s 27 states. The border-check system will allow authorities to know when people entered and exited a country, with the goal of better detecting anyone overstaying and people refused entry. […] Non-EU nationals arriving for short stays in EU countries — except Cyprus and Ireland — will be asked for their...

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has praised US President Donald Trump's leadership in the Gaza peace talks, claiming the deal "would not have happened" without him. On Wednesday, Trump announced Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first phase of his 20-point peace plan, in a major step towards a permanent end to their war. It comes two years and two days after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage. Sir Keir said the UK "played an important part behind the scenes" and had seen...

1. The Classification of the AfD by an Administrative Agency In the spring of 2025, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV, Germany's domestic intelligence service) classified the political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as a "right-wing extremist" organization. This classification granted the authorities the power to place its members and supporters under police surveillance without prior judicial authorization, including measures such as intercepting private communications or the BfV recruiting informants within the party. This "judgment" was not delivered by an independent court. It was created by an administrative agency directly under the authority of the Interior...

President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that Spain be expelled from NATO over its failure to match the higher defense spending requirement he has engineered. "We had one laggard, it was Spain," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "They have no excuse not to do this, but that's all right. Maybe you should throw them out of NATO frankly." In June, the 32-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed to massively boost defense spending over the next decade under pressure from Trump, who at the time threatened to punish Madrid on trade for resisting the new target of five percent of...

Sir Keir Starmer will warn students not to take part in “un-British” protests marking the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre and accuses those who call for violence against Jews of a “total loss of empathy and humanity”. Writing in The Times, the prime minister says that Britain has become indifferent to antisemitism, posing a profound threat to the nation and its values. He accuses those taking part in the protests of a lack of respect for others and urges the police to use the “full force of the law” against those who call for violence against Jews. “This...

Munich Airport in Germany was forced to close for almost seven hours overnight after a wave of drone sightings, the latest European aviation hub to shutter over unexplained drone flights.A total of 17 flights were grounded shortly after 10 p.m. local time on Thursday, affecting nearly 3,000 passengers, the airport said in a statement.In addition, 15 arriving flights were diverted to the German cities of Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Frankfurt, as well as Vienna in neighboring Austria, the statement said. Flight tracking website Flightradar showed several planes circling the airport at around 11pm local time before heading to other destinations.The airport...

SUMMARYProtests erupt in Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, Germany and Switzerland Protesters in Barcelona smash windows In Italy, students occupy, block access to universities Pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Europe on Thursday blocked traffic and vandalised shops and restaurants after Israeli forces intercepted a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla. Israel faced international condemnation after armed Israeli soldiers boarded around 40 ships that were attempting to break a naval blockade to deliver aid to the Palestinian enclave, arresting more than 400 foreign activists including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg. In Barcelona, protesters smashed or spray-painted anti-Israel slogans on windows of stores and restaurants including coffee...