El Pais retracts column comparing Merkel to Hitler
SPAIN: Spanish newspaper El Pais on Sunday retracted a column that
compared German Chancellor Angela Merkel to Adolf Hitler and apologised
for its “inappropriate” content after sparking an indignant Internet
outcry.
In the column, published on the paper’s website and in its Andalusia
regional edition, economist Juan Torres Lopez of the University of
Seville wrote that “Angela Merkel, like Hitler, has declared war on the
rest of the continent, this time to guarantee (Germany) its vital
economic space.” “She punishes us to protect her large companies and
banks and also to hide from her electorate the shameful model that has
seen the poverty rate in her country rise to its highest level in 20
years, 25 percent of employees earn less than 9.15 euros an hour and
half the population represent... a miserable one percent of all the
nation’s wealth.” After the column provoked shocked reactions online,
the newspaper took it down from its website and apologised.
“El Pais has withdrawn the article ‘Germany against Europe’...
because it contained statements that this newspaper considers
inappropriate,” it said.
AFP |