After ten years of Islamophobic activity, Germany’s far-right “Pegida” movement announced its dissolution on Sunday at its latest demonstration in Dresden (eastern Germany).
Its leader, Lutz Bachmann, announced that he was stepping down for health reasons, and that Sunday’s rally, the movement’s 250th, would be his last.
Although the actions of “Pegida” (acronym for “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West) have tended to remain local, in the city of Dresden, the group and its leader have nevertheless been categorized as extreme right-wing by German intelligence services.
The announcement of the end of this nationalist movement is good news, but it should not give the impression that its loss of momentum is a reality on a national scale.