HANNOVER. Police officers in Germany have been on missions more than 360 times since October last year The 25-year-old techno hit “L’amour toujours” had people chanting the slogan “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out”.The actual number is probably considerably higher Image-newspaper reported. The research by the German editorial network from which the figures come does not include the states of Saxony and Bavaria.
Civil servants were deployed most often in North Rhine-Westphalia. The police registered a total of 96 operations here between November 2023 and June 2024. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern comes in second with 45 cases. In a few cases, the editorial network also provides details: the song was sung twice in schoolyards in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, uploaded to social networks twice and, in one case, sung by a pupil during class in Sassnitz.
The recorded incidents occurred at public festivals, discos, educational institutions and private parties. It is unclear whether singing the slogan in public is actually a criminal offence. In order to be legally considered ‘incitement’, the Federal Court of Justice has ruled several times in the past that it is not enough to ‘shout out foreigners’.
The video ‘L’amour toujours’ caused a lot of reactions in the media
How long the phenomenon has been around is hard to say. It first gained wider media attention in November 2023. A video had previously emerged from the Thanksgiving festival in the town of Bergholz in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It showed a group of young men in a disco singing the slogan to the tune of the song “L’amour toujours” by Italian musician Gigi D’Agostino. One of the attendees was said to be the son of the mayor of a neighboring town.
The video spread online and other users created memes and parodies. The phenomenon attracted a lot of attention in May after a video appeared on social networks in which partygoers in a bar in Sylt sang the slogan to the song. The recordings caused great public outrage.
An SPD politician published, among other things, the real names of the people on the Internet. A woman seen in the video threatened with exmatriculation. (lb)