Scholz joins thousands at protest against far-right in Potsdam

Thousands of people - including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock - took to the streets of suburban Berlin on Sunday to protest far-right extremism.
The rally comes days after an investigative report said that right-wing extremists and politicians from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) had met to discuss plans for the mass deportation of millions of migrants from Germany.
Some 10,000 people joined Sunday's rally in the old market area or Altmarkt said Potsdam's Mayor Mike Schubert, who had called for the protest.
Potsdam is the capital of the state of Brandenburg, which borders Berlin, and both Scholz and Baerbock live there. Demonstrators held up posters with slogans such as "We stick together" and others that praised a multi-ethnic population.
"I am standing here as one of thousands of Potsdam residents who are standing up for democracy and against old and new fascism," Baerbock told dpa.
Local party leaders from Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD), the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the Greens and The Left party also took part in the rally.
The protest came in response to reporting by media outlet Correctiv earlier in the week, which uncovered details of a meeting in a Potsdam villa in November attended by members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), some CDU members and members of the arch conservative Werteunion group.