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Coming just days after the arrest of an Afghan migrant over the murder of an EU official's daughter, the 77-minute speech interrupted by minutes of standing ovations.

She pledged to strengthen the forces of law and order while speeding up the sclerotic deportation process of failed asylum seekers.

She said at the start of her speech designed to claw back ground lost in recent months to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Angela Merkel said: "Not all the 890,000 refugees who came last year can or will stay."

But the pastor's daughter who was raised in communist East Germany pledged that every asylum application would be judged on its merits and that people would not be lumped into an "anonymous mass."