Chancellor Friedrich Merz has a simple message for many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who found sanctuary in Germany during their country’s long and brutal civil war: It’s time to go back to Syria.
In reality, it will be hard for Merz to compel a large share of the roughly one million Syrians living in Germany to leave. But under pressure from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, whose leaders vow to forcibly return Syrian refugees en masse, the chancellor is taking a harder line on Germany’s Syrian population, and says he’ll work with Syria’s president, former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, to do so.
“The civil war in Syria is over,” Merz said earlier this week. “There are now no longer any grounds for asylum in Germany, which means we can begin repatriating people.”














