German Chancellor Angela Merkel enraged local activists after she appeared to suggest that the Kremlin was pulling the strings behind student climate protests. But her spokesman later said that she supported the demonstrations.
Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert was left to do some urgent damage control after the chancellor appeared to pin the blame for schoolchildren-led environmental protests across Europe on the long arm of Moscow.
Warning of the omnipotent threat to Europe’s security from Russia, Merkel noted that such warfare is “hard to detect, because you suddenly have movements that you wouldn’t have thought would appear.”
“In Germany now, children are protesting for climate protection,” she said. While conceding that it was “a really important issue,” Merkel appeared to cast doubt on its grassroot origins.
“But you can’t imagine that all German children, after years, and without any outside influence, suddenly hit on the idea that they have to take part in this process,” she said.
Merkel’s innuendo is not uncommon, as Moscow has been blamed for a range of international interferences by media and foreign governments, from Brexit in the UK, Yellow Vests in France, and – most recently – the global measles outbreak.
However, Merkel’s suggestion did not sit well with environmental activists at home, who were fuming at the suggestion.
“Merkel puts us on a par with hybrid warfare. We don’t accept this. We are a self-organized movement of students,” the group tweeted.
https://twitter.com/FridayForFuture/status/1096842799884963840
As the controversy grew, Markus Winkler, social media specialist for World Wide Fund (WWF) Germany, asked Seibert to clarify what made the German government allege that the protests were the work of Russian masterminds.
The request for evidence, which is often lacking in cases where Russia is to blame, saw Seibert backpedaling on Merkel’s remark. He said that Merkel merely mentioned ‘Fridays for Future’ as an “example of mobilization through social media campaigns.”
The chancellor’s spokesman added that she “expressively approves” of the movement.
According to the protests’ organizers, some 26,000 people turned up across 35 German cities to protest against the government’s failure to tackle climate change on Friday. Some 15,000 people took to the streets in the UK for the same cause.
Diese Woche haben wir wieder zum #FridaysForFuture gestreikt. Heute waren wir deutschlandweit mehr als 26.000 junge Menschen in über 35 Städten.
Auch in Großbritannien wurde gestreikt, dort waren heute zum ersten Streik bei @Strike4Youth über 15.000 Menschen gekommen. pic.twitter.com/LHoBSQIbr6— Fridays for Future Germany (@FridayForFuture) February 15, 2019