Excerpt:
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said on Friday he would not change his views on Islam, striking a defiant note just two days after Chancellor Angela Merkel put him down for challenging the place of the religion in Germany. Merkel appointed Seehofer, who leads her conservative Bavarian allies, to her cabinet as interior minister under a coalition deal struck earlier this month. Barely a week into the job, he has already strained the fragile ‘grand coalition’.
“I will not change my politics a jot,” Seehofer told Der Spiegel magazine, which said he was deeply annoyed by Merkel contradicting him.
A week ago, Seehofer told the Bild daily that “Islam does not belong” in Germany, prompting Merkel to say on Wednesday during her first government statement to parliament since starting her fourth term in office: “Islam has become part of Germany.”