BERLIN – Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, well-known as a severecritic of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy toward migrants,recently said that Islam is not part of German culture. Similar statementshave been repeatedly made by the right-wing party Alternative for Germany.

Horst Seehofer, Germany’s newly inaugurated Interior Minister and leaderof the Christian Social Union (CSU), allied with German Chancellor AngelaMerkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), publicly opposed the idea thatthe Islam is part of German culture.

“No. Islam does not belong to Germany,” Seehofer said in an interviewwith the German newspaper Das Bild. “Germany has been shapedby Christianity.”

In particular, the politician stressed that some aspects of German everydaylife have been prompted by Christian traditions. This includes,for example, that all supermarkets and stores are closed on Sundays andthat many public holidays coincide with church holidays such as Easter andChristmas.

Although the politician told the media source that Muslims are a partof Germany, he stressed that the country won’t abandon its centuries-longbeliefs and national traditions.

The “Islam doesn’t belong to Germany” remark was repeatedly made by the AfDpartylink>beforethegeneral election last year. The right-wing party which is now thethird-largest bloc in the Bundestag and the country’s largest oppositionparty is known for its tough stance on migration.

Seehofer also said that he was working on a “master plan” to speedup deportations of migrants whose asylum applications had been rejected.

In 2015, Merkel announced that Germany would open its borders to migrants,fleeing to Europe in the hundreds of thousands in search of a safer future.