EU elections: earthquake in France and a rightward policy

Emmanuel Macron calls a snap election and the hard right wins big in Germany – but that’s far from the whole picture

In Germany, the further rise of the far right was expected – every poll had predicted as much. What was not expected, however, was that revelations of alleged corruption and involvement of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) with the Russian and Chinese governments would apparently matter so little to its voters. Though the resulting gains – the AfD jumped to 16% from 11% in 2019 – were overall more modest than looked probable in the spring, across east Germany the far right came out ahead of all other parties.

Mariam Lau is a political commentator for Die Zeit