Germany's Merz attacks AfD in stormy debate after far-right election win — SkimNews
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- Friedrich Merz clashed with AfD leader Alice Weidel in the Bundestag, calling the party a 'destructive force' whose remigration policy amounted to 'ethnic cleansing' of skilled trades based on 'skin colour and origin'
- The AfD won almost 44% of the vote in Saxony-Anhalt, while Merz's CDU saw its support roughly halved to 17.2%, prompting Weidel to declare the chancellor's coalition with the Social Democrats 'a total failure'
- The AfD fell three seats short of an outright majority in Saxony-Anhalt; no far-right party has ever won power in any of Germany's 16 states since World War Two
- Merz accused the AfD of harming German interests by backing Russia, and warned that its policies would shut down care homes, hospitals and restaurants because one in six skilled workers has a migration background
- Donald Trump praised the result, saying the 'Populist Party in Germany just had a really big night' and blaming 'absolutely horrible immigration rules and regulations'
- A planned phone call between Trump and Merz marking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was postponed by Berlin with no reason given and no new date set
- The AfD has opened coalition talks potentially with the left-wing populist BSW to install Ulrich Siegmund as state premier, while Siegmund's number two suggested the CDU itself could work with the AfD if it abandons the 'firewall' (Brandmauer)
Why it matters: The AfD's 44% haul in Saxony-Anhalt is the strongest far-right result in a German state election since WWII, and Merz's own CDU deputy in the state has publicly floated dropping the democratic firewall — meaning the post-WWII consensus against normalizing the far right now has visible cracks inside Merz's own party, not just from the AfD's side.
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