the far right reaches one of its highest levels in public opinion since the post-war period

If the elections were held on Saturday June 3 and Sunday June 4 in Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AFD) party would, according to the latest polls, be neck and neck with the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, at around 18%, behind the CDU-CSU (29%) but clearly ahead of the ecologists (14%). Ten years after its creation, the AFD has thus reached a level that the far-right party has only experienced once, in the summer of 2018.

The AFD benefits first and foremost from the unpopularity of the ruling coalition, whose action, in a context of inflation, recession and anxiety linked to the war in Ukraine, is only welcomed by a German out of five, according to a survey published Thursday, June 1 by the ARD channel (in German). For their part, the conservatives of the CDU-CSU, in opposition since the departure of Angela Merkel, are struggling to embody an alternative.

While two out of three AfD voters still put immigration at the top of their minds, the far-right party appears to be profiting from its opposition to the government’s climate policy. This positioning allows him to reach one of his highest levels of popularity since the post-war period.