Disenchanted German citizens and right-wing extremists are joining forces to form a protest movement to fight what they see as the Islamization of the West. Is this the end of the long-praised German tolerance of recent years?

By SPIEGEL Staff

Participants hold up their mobile phones during a demonstration called by anti-immigration group PEGIDA in Dresden

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In Dresden, at least, the sentiments expressed in the Blaue Narzisse have become more palpable in recent weeks. Protests staged each week on Mondays initially attracted only a few dozen to a few hundred people, but more recently the number of citizens taking to the streets has reached 10,000. The group, which calls itself Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (and goes by the German acronym Pegida), demonstrates against economic migrants and a supposed « cultural foreign domination of our country » — whatever is meant by that.