Merkel Walks a Tightrope on German Immigration

TIME reported that: Chancellor Angela Merkel's pronouncement last weekend that attempts to build a "multicultural" Germany had "failed, absolutely failed" was hardly the first such tirade against immigrants. In August, Thilo Sarrazin, a former board member of Germany's central bank, caused a stir by writing in his bestselling book, Germany Does Away With Itself, that Muslim immigrants are "dumbing down" Germany and the rapid growth of the immigrant population was contributing to the country's decline. But while Merkel's comments during an address to the youth wing of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on October 16 came as an unusually emotional outburst, she may nonetheless have had a political motive for weighing in on the fraught topic of immigration. The Chancellor's comments appear directed at Germany's 3 million Turkish immigrants, who began to arrive as "guest workers" ("Gastarbeiter") to fill labor shortages during the 1960s and '70s. And they were received with a standing ovation, clearly pleasing her party's hardline conservatives, who have long argued that Muslim immigrants are poorly integrated. With her conservative bloc trailing in the polls ahead of a key state election next March, commentators seized on Merkel's speech as evidence of a rightward populist shift designed to tap into German fears about the economy and immigration.