A new poll found that 40 percent of Germans are so disgusted with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy on refugees that they want her to resign.
Merkel has earned an incredible amount of backlash for letting 1.1 million refugees from Africa and the Middle East pour across Germany’s border. She recently admitted that the refugee crisis has gotten out of hand and Europe has lost control of the situation.
This most recent Insa poll, conducted for Focus magazine, represents a complete switch from Merkel’s popularity ratings just a year ago, which is when she received Time Magazine’s Person of the Year award for her progressive stance on refugees.
Now, her popularity ratings have sunk to the lowest they’ve been in four years. Germans have grown incensed over the coordinated sexual assault of hundreds of women by North Africans and Arabs, which occurred in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. An apparent cover-up by authorities has only made public relations matters worse.
The attacks also aren’t isolated to Cologne — reports are emerging of other attacks all over Germany. The most recent ARD poll found that 51 percent of Germans are scared of “so many refugees.”
Still, Justice Minister Heiko Maas warned Germans that the mass attacks against women were no justification for agitating against foreigners.
An additional 800,000 refugees are expected to arrive in Germany later this year. Most of the asylum applications in 2015 came from Syria, Albania, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Migrants from the Balkans will likely have their applications rejected.
Merkel is losing allies fast. Members of her own party have urged her towards harsher measures against refugees. In an effort to backpedal, Germany announced the addition of several North African countries to its “safe list,” meaning that migrants from those countries are unlikely to gain admission to Germany based on claims for asylum. The country has also said it will boost the speed of deportations.
The Insa poll relied on a sample size of 2,047 Germans and was conducted from Jan. 22 to 25.
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