Angela Merkel slaps down ally who said Islam had no place in Germany
2018-03-17 09:00:27 source：The Times
March 16, 2018
Angela Merkel has moved quickly to overrule her new interior minister hours after he declared that “Islam does not belong to Germany” and as cracks in her fragile coalition government began to appear.
She said that the religion of Germany’s four million Muslims did indeed belong to the country despite the view of Horst Seehofer, a senior figure in the Christian Social Union party in Bavaria, her conservative ally.
Mr Seehofer, 68, secured the renamed Ministry of Interior and Homeland in the coalition government as a platform to push through a tougher immigration policy and try to win back voters who switched to the nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The clash between the two main conservative figures in the left-right “grand coalition” sworn in on Wednesday is a foretaste of arguments to come as the three parties seek to re-establish clear ideological identities amid falling poll ratings.
Read more: