Key events
Here are photos from Germany early this morning, as farmers began blocking roads.
‘The mood is heating up’: Germany fears strikes will play into hands of far right
Philip Oltermann
The symbolism that German farmers chose to express their discontent with the government in the first days of the new year was as unambiguous as it was ominous: by the side of rural roads across the country, there were sightings of makeshift gallows dangling traffic-light signs, a reference to the colours of the three governing parties.
The chilling sculptures are harbingers of unprecedented cross-sector protests and strikes hitting German roads and railways from Monday, and speak of a dramatic change of mood in a country long feted for its consensus-seeking approach to industrial relations, especially compared with its more traditionally strike-prone neighbour France.
With key elections coming up in eastern German states this year, even some farmers fear the new revolutionary spirit could play straight into the hands of a buoyant far right.
An eight-day countrywide protest by agricultural workers, involving motorway blockades and described by the head of the farmers’ association as “the like of which the country has never experienced before”, will go ahead in spite of the government’s partial U-turn on the cuts to diesel subsidies and farming vehicle tax breaks that had triggered them.
The protests of the self-employed farmers and freight carriers, and the strikes in the state-owned train sector, are not coordinated, focusing on different demands and in some cases related to disputes that precede the current government. But their concurrence has given the far right a perfect opportunity to stoke populist fantasies of a coup d’etat.
On its social media channels, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has painted a picture of ordinary people being “driven into ruin by an irresponsible political leadership like in the middle ages”, and urged citizens to join what it has called a “general strike”.
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