Police turned up at a government building after a politician was seen waving his own country’s flag from the balcony.
MPs from the populist-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) were reacting to protesters from the balcony of a Bundestag office on Monday (8 Jun).
The crowd below waved German flags and demanded the resignation of the chancellor as they marched through the street.
Among those supporting the demonstrators in Berlin was Beatrix von Storch, who could be seen waving the tricolour flag from the balcony.
In a video posted by Pierre Lamely, German parliamentary police officers could be seen arriving on the balcony shortly afterwards.
The officers informed the surprised MPs that they had been “sent up” over the flag-waving, as reported by Need To Know.
Stefan Keuter, who had been chanting “Merz must go!” along with protesters, pointed towards the flag on the nearby Reichstag building and asked: “What’s the problem?”
One officer then politely informed the MPs that they may have breached the building’s house rules, adding: “This is currently being clarified.”
After the police left, von Storch told the camera: “He seemed a bit embarrassed himself.”
The Bundestag’s house rules prohibit “the placing of notices in the generally accessible buildings of the German Bundestag as well as on windows and façades of these buildings that are visible from outside”.
Keuter later told local media that the officers “were very friendly, but also somewhat helpless and couldn’t say on what legal basis they were acting.
“I assume this will now be examined further, but I can’t imagine that waving a German flag would be sanctioned. That would be a huge own goal.
“Opposite my office there is still an LGBTQ flag hanging. That would be applying double standards if the German flag were challenged but that flag were allowed to remain.”
Nearly 10,000 people were registered for Monday’s demonstration, but only an estimated 2,000 took part.
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