Alexander Gauland, the party leader of Germany's right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), criticized Germany's participation in the weekend's Paris centenary commemoration of the armistice that ended World War I.

"I think it is wrong to rewrite history and to retrospectively take part in the victory celebration of the Allies," he told German TV broadcaster ZDF. He added that Germany lost the war, that the policies that led to World War I had "many perpetrators" and that German "clumsiness" was partly to blame.

"But we can't switch sides to support the victors after the historical fact and start walking through the Arc de Triomphe alongside Mister Macron," he said, referring to the Peace Forum hosted by French President Macron in Paris, which German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended.