The Far Right’s Success In Germany Adds Fuel To Three Fires Burning In The World

-Analysis-

PARIS — Thuringia is a German federal state, part of the former GDR of East Germany, with a population of just over two million. It doesn’t carry much weight in a Germany of more than 80 million citizens. But it made history Sunday when a far-right party that barely conceals its historical references to Nazism came out on top in the regional elections.

In Saxony, another eastern state, this same party, the Alliance for Germany (AFD), is hot on the heels of the leading CDU conservatives. It’s stunning, and the political impact is considerable. A third eastern state, Brandenburg, around Berlin, will vote in three weeks, and is expected to confirm the AFD’s surge.

The shock was made all the greater by the fact that another party at the extremes of the spectrum, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), a radical left-wing split that combines social progress, societal conservatism and pro-Russian overtones, achieved double-digit scores just a few months after its launch. At the same time, the parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition collapsed to below the 10% mark.

Trouble for Europe

Of course, right-wing extremism is on the rise in many European countries, but Germany’s history made it seem relatively unscathed until just a few years ago.

The particular context of the former GDR is well known, including a persistent sense of humiliation despite economic catch-up with the West. This is not the first time that voters in the former East Germany have sided with the extremes, more than three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of their communist country. But it is the first time they have put the AFD in the lead in an entire region, at a time of flux in Germany’s political and economic life.

Europe needs an engine in good condition.

This is a cause for concern for all political parties, just one year before the next general election. One AFD leader spoke of a “requiem for the coalition” in power in Berlin.

Ukraine war, U.S. elections

As elsewhere, this far-right upsurge is weighing on the political climate. On immigration, after a young Syrian who’d been denied asylum killed several passers-by last week in Solingen; or on aid to Ukraine, which divides even the current ruling coalition. Right-wing politics is already making itself felt within Angela Merkel’s former party, the CDU, which hopes to return to power next year.

It is this weakening of German political life that has led some to say that Germany has become “Europe’s sick man”, as we used to say. The problem is that this German crisis coincides with that of France, with the absence here of a parliamentary majority.

To have France and Germany focused on their political crises and less engaged in global issues at the same time is a real problem, given that they are the traditional driving force behind the European Union.

In the midst of the war in Ukraine, two months before a decisive U.S. election and a fairly destabilized world, Europe needs an engine in good condition. French and German voters have decided otherwise, and the shockwaves will be long-lasting.