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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Kate Connolly in Berlin

German opposition leader ramps up immigration rhetoric after knife attack

Friedrich Merz delivers a speech during a Bavarian veal sausage breakfast in Brilon.
Friedrich Merz delivers a speech during a Bavarian veal sausage breakfast in Brilon. Photograph: Friedemann Vogel/EPA

Germany’s opposition leader has pledged to strengthen border controls and step up deportations if he becomes chancellor after elections next month, a day after an Afghan man was arrested over a knife attack in which two people died.

Friedrich Merz, whose conservative CDU/CSU alliance is leading in polls, said he would not allow attacks like the one in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg on Wednesday to become a “normal affair”.

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