Bavarian leader puts crosses in state offices amid anti-immigrant backlash
The national heads of Germany's Roman Catholic and Protestant churches have condemned Markus Söder's cross edict.
The governor of Bavaria, in southern Germany, has ordered that crosses be displayed at the entrances to government buildings across his state.
Markus Söder has presented the move not as merely a reflection of the values Bavarians share. The cross “has a defining effect on the identity of our society,” and hanging it in public offices shows “our Bavarian identity and way of life.”
Critics have denounced the order as a bald effort to woo Bavaria’s traditionally pious and heavily Catholic conservative voters away from the far-right Alternative for Germany, an anti-immigrant party that claimed 94 seats in the country’s parliament in federal elections last year. AfD’s fortunes have risen on a backlash against the influx of over a million migrants since 2015, mostly Muslims fleeing the Middle East.
