Greens accuse FPÖ politician of racism over schoolchildren’s names

FPÖ politician Fabian Walch has drawn widespread criticism after posting the first names of children at an Innsbruck school and calling for “remigration”, ORF reported. The Greens described the post as a “racism scandal”, while the SPÖ called it a political taboo breach.

The Innsbruck city councillor published a photograph of a list of pupils on Instagram. The children’s surnames, the school’s exact address and the class teacher’s name were obscured, but their first names remained visible. The list appears to have been photographed through the glass wall of an educational institution.

Walch said the list belonged to a first-year class in Innsbruck. “A look into schools is a look into the future,” he wrote. “That we are becoming a minority in our own city is the reality if we do not finally begin with remigration.”

The Tyrolean Greens said the post exposed the FPÖ’s far-right orientation. Integration spokesperson Zeliha Arslan accused the party of openly threatening children with expulsion and said people had been defamed and publicly targeted because of their names.

Dejan Lukovic, head of the Greens’ Innsbruck city council group, said Walch was threatening all people without traditionally Austrian first or last names with expulsion. “This is racism in its purest form,” he said.

Arslan and Lukovic called for Walch’s resignation, saying anyone who publicly marked children because of their names and origins and used them to fuel hatred had left the democratic consensus.

The SPÖ city council group, which governs Innsbruck with the Greens and the JA list, also condemned the post. It said Walch had crossed a line by advocating the deportation of children.

Innsbruck Deputy Mayor Elisabeth Mayr of the SPÖ called it “a complete derailment” for a city politician to use children for a political campaign and call for them to be taken out of the country. She said children had become targets of attacks and deportation fantasies.

Walch responded to ORF Tirol on Friday evening. He said the list showed a current class at an Innsbruck compulsory school during the 2026-27 school year and that “as many people as possible” should see this “worrying development”.

He accused the ÖVP and SPÖ of decades of failure and wrong policies, saying the FPÖ would ensure that more children with traditionally Austrian names were born when it held government responsibility.

Walch also said that “remigration” did not mean the deportation of children, as the Greens claimed. He said the term referred instead to returning people who were in the country illegally or had committed crimes to their countries of origin.

“We will implement these measures without ifs or buts while also ensuring good family policy for our own people,” Walch said.