France, Feb. 2 -- At least 160,000 thousand demonstrators converged on Berlin Sunday, said police, to protest the norm-shattering overtures by Germany's conservatives' toward the far right.

Organisers said 200,000 people had turned out to denounce the breach by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Germany's unwritten agreement not to work with the far right at the national level, in place since World War II.

After the rally kicked off just outside the Bundestag, Germany's parliament building, some protesters chanted slogans including "Shame on you CDU" before moving on towards the party's headquarters.

Others accused the CDU and its leader Friedrich Merz of having made a "pact with the devil" by seeking the backing of the far-right ...