The Rio de Janeiro mayor’s barb has come after the German leader spoke disparagingly of another Brazilian city that hosted a climate summit
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is a “Nazi,” the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, has charged. The now-deleted X post came in response to Merz’s disparaging comment about another Brazilian city, Belem, which has hosted the UN Climate Summit.
The German chancellor spent a single day at the international event earlier this month, and on his return to Berlin, he shared his impressions of the town in northern Brazil with the attendees of a trade conference in the German capital last Thursday.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world,” Merz proclaimed, adding that “last week, I asked some journalists who were with me in Brazil: ‘Who among you would like to stay here?’ Not one hand raised. They were all glad that we had returned to Germany, especially from this place we had just been to.”
His remark has caused quite a stir in Brazil this week, with a number of officials expressing their outrage at what they perceived as contempt for the host country by a Western leader.
In a post on X on Tuesday, Rio de Janeiro mayor Paes described Merz as a “Son of Hitler! Tramp! Nazi!” The Brazilian official deleted the post soon afterward, writing in another message that the tirade was his “way of letting off steam today.”
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Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suggested that Merz had only himself to blame for failing to enjoy the delights of Belem to the fullest, claiming that the Brazilian city compares favorably with Berlin.
In a post on X, the governor of Para state, where Belem is situated, Helder Barbalh wrote that “it’s curious to see those who helped warm the planet find the Amazon’s heat strange.”
Speaking on Wednesday, the German chancellor stood by his controversial statement.
“I said that Germany is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and I assume President Lula will accept that,” Merz said.
While Merz’s choice of words has not created as much of a splash at home as it has in Brazil, some German politicians have still criticized him.
Katharina Droge from the Green Party lamented that the “image the Chancellor projected during his trip to Brazil was disastrous.”
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