The point of this election was never just about a nation’s struggle to rediscover its economic mojo or re-evaluate its asylum policy – important as those issues absolutely are.

It’s also about Germany’s ability to become the confident, world power that many of its allies want it to be.

While there are capitals in Europe looking to Berlin for global leadership, within Germany, the priorities are often different.

Merz will now need to balance those demands along with the inevitable compromises that come with coalition building.

His promise to represent everyone comes amidst clear and stark divides in Germany.

This election has again highlighted an east-west split, decades on from reunification.

Voting data so far suggests that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is solidifying its dominance in the former communist east while the Christian Democrats (CDU-CSU) continue to prevail in much of Germany’s south and west.

An ARD exit poll shows 18 to 24-year-olds were most likely to back the left Die Linke party – followed by the AfD.

An irony of this campaign has been that – of the four main parties – the one most guaranteed to not get power sucked up so much attention.

AfD’s rise is a central story of this election – and contemporary German politics.

This is a party blocked from government because of a policy of non-cooperation with the far-right, known as the “firewall”.

Sections of the AfD have been classified as right-wing extremist by domestic intelligence.

One of its most prominent figures, Bjorn Hocke, has been fined for using a banned Nazi-era slogan – Alles fur Deutschland.

Eyebrows have been raised as some AfD supporters have reportedly since morphed the phrase into, “Alice fur Deutschland” – in reference to leader, Alice Weidel.

Those people may suggest it’s a finger up to an establishment that they think finds spurious excuses to smear them.

Others worry that it’s a sign of something far more sinister.

The AfD has become ever-bolder, some might even argue reckless, in its rhetoric.

On the campaign trail, we heard one AfD councillor – in a row with two men of colour – say: “Go back to your Heimat (homeland) if you don’t like this here.”

He did so, as we were openly filming him – then flatly denied it was racist.

Yet a stream of controversies hasn’t stopped the AfD from enjoying its best ever result.

In second place, it hasn’t outperformed expectations but this still marks the strongest showing for a far-right party in post-war Germany.

Already social media savvy, it has a powerful ally in tech billionaire Elon Musk who’s openly endorsed the party.

Many talk of 2025 as an inflection point for Germany.

Either this could be the high watermark for the far-right – or the moment that will be remembered as the key stepping stone on its path to power.

Much depends, say opponents of the AfD, on Germany’s centrist politicians getting their act together and tackling voters’ concerns.

If they don’t, the AfD will be a prime position to launch political attacks on the government as Germany’s main opposition party.

Frontwoman Alice Weidel has her eye on the next election as much as this one.

And the 46-year-old’s mission to make the AfD a more palatable political force appears to have been effective.

Finally, let’s not forget Olaf Scholz (even if many already have).

His allies say that the outgoing chancellor had to play a difficult hand; in charge of an unwieldy three-way coalition, at a time of crisis – notably dealing with the fallout from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

And Scholz may best be remembered for his Zeitenwende speech; a pledge – not fully delivered – to bring about a turning point in security and defence policy.

A failure to deliver now – at home or abroad – could spell further danger for the parties that occupy Germany’s political centre.

“Let’s celebrate tonight and in the morning, we’ll get to work,” he told cheering supporters. His immediate priority is to try to form a government with the third-placed Social Democrats of Olaf Scholz.

Even before the result was clear, Merz said his top priority was unity in Europe, so that “step by step, we can really achieve independence from the US”.

The other big winner in Sunday’s vote was the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), who are celebrating a record second-place result of 20.8%.

The AfD’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, did a victory lap of her supporters, but even her party had hoped for a greater result and the mood at AfD HQ was subdued.

Merz, 69, has never held a ministerial job, but he has promised if he becomes the next German chancellor to show leadership in Europe and beef up support for Ukraine.

Most Germans have been shocked by President Donald Trump’s conduct towards Ukraine and Europe and Friedrich Merz said the US leader had shown “the Americans are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe”.

Trump has labelled Ukraine’s leader a “dictator” and two of his leading figures have openly backed the AfD in the run-up to the vote. Vice-President JD Vance was accused of meddling in the vote during a visit to Munich, while billionaire Elon Musk has made repeated remarks on his X platform.

Friedrich Merz’s first priority will be to try to form a coalition made up of his Christian Democrats (and their Bavarian sister party, the CSU) and Scholz’s centre left, despite the Social Democrats’ worst-ever showing of 16.4%.

Merz’s CDU party leadership will meet on Monday and so will the Social Democrat SPD’s, separately, but Scholz will not take part in the talks.

Merz is keen to form a government by Easter. It could be possible, because between the two parties, they have 328 seats, a majority of 12 in the 630-seat parliament.

But it was not until the early hours of Monday that that became clear.

After the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition late last year, Merz had asked the electorate for a strong mandate to form a clear-cut coalition with one other party.

In the event, he secured enough seats only because two of the smaller parties failed to get into parliament.

A two-party coalition would enable him to solve as many of Germany’s problems as he could in four years, he said, from a stagnant economy to closing its borders to irregular migrants.

German voters had other ideas. They came out in big numbers, with a 83% turnout not seen since before reunification in 1990.

Merz’s Christian Democrats had been looking for more than the 28.6% of the vote they and their Bavarian sister party received.

His most likely partner was always going to be the Social Democrats – known in Germany as a GroKo, or grand coalition.

But Germany’s electorate has fractured, and the two big beasts of its post-war politics can no longer be sure of success.

The AfD under Alice Weidel enjoyed a 10-point increase in support on four years ago, their support boosted by anger over high prices and a series of deadly attacks in German cities.

Three took place during the election campaign.

Weidel also benefited from a successful TikTok campaign that drew in big numbers of young voters.

As results came in during the early hours of Monday, it became clear the AfD was far ahead of the other parties in the east, with a projected 34%, according to a survey for public broadcaster ZDF.

“Germans have voted for change,” said Weidel. She said Friedrich Merz’s attempt to forge a coalition would ultimately end in failure: “We’ll have fresh elections – I don’t think we’ll have to wait another four years.”

But just as the election map turned light blue in the east, much of the rest of Germany turned black – the colour of the CDU.

And Merz dismissed the rise of the AfD out of hand. “The party only exists because there have been problems that haven’t been solved. They’re happy if these problems get worse and worse.”

“We need to solve the problems… then that party, the AfD, will disappear.”

Merz was equally withering towards the new Trump administration.

President Trump did welcome Merz’s victory. He said it was proof that Germans were, like Americans, tired of “the no common sense agenda, especially on energy and immigration”.

If it was an overture, Merz did not take it as one. He told a round-table TV discussion on Sunday night that the interventions from Washington had been “no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow”.

Last week, Trump appeared to accuse Kyiv of starting the war which Russia unleashed on its neighbour exactly three years ago.

Merz’s victory was quickly welcomed by leaders across much of Europe. France’s Emmanuel Macron spoke of uniting at a time of uncertainty to “face the major challenges of the world and our continent”, while the UK’s Sir Keir Starmer sought to “enhance our joint security and deliver growth for both our countries”.

Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats continue to rely on older voters for their success, while voters aged 18-24 appear to be far more interested in both the AfD and another party, the Left, which surged in the polls in recent weeks.

Not long ago, the Left was heading out of the parliament, with poll numbers well below the 5% threshold.

But a series of TikTok videos showing co-leader Heidi Reichinnek giving fiery speeches in parliament went viral and they ended up close to 9%, and a quarter of the younger vote, according to an ARD survey.

Declaring the US indifferent to this continent’s fate, Friedrich Merz questioned the future of Nato and demanded Europe boost its own defences. Quickly.

This tone from the close US ally – and from Friedrich Merz who is known to be a passionate Atlanticist – would have been unimaginable even a couple of months ago.

It’s a seismic shift. That may read like hyperbole, but what we are now experiencing in terms of transatlantic relations is unprecedented in the 80 years since the end of World War Two.

Big European powers have been shocked to the core by the Trump administration, which suggests it could revoke the security guarantees to Europe in place since 1945.

“I would never have thought that I would have to say something like this in a TV show but, after Donald Trump’s remarks last week… it is clear that this government does not care much about the fate of Europe,” Friedrich Merz said during a post-election debate on Sunday.

“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” he added.

Merz hinted that the endeavour was so urgent that he was not sure on whether the transatlantic alliance leaders gathering for a summit in June “would still be talking about Nato in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defence capability much more quickly”.

Significantly, the forthcoming chancellor put Donald Trump’s America on a par with Russia – widely viewed here as a security threat to Europe more broadly. “We are under such massive pressure from two sides that my absolute priority now really is to create unity in Europe,” Merz said.

The UK prime minister heads to Washington on Thursday, following the visit there on Monday by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Friedrich Merz admits, indirectly, to a sense of Fomo – fear of missing out. By rights Germany should be there, too, this week, he says. Berlin, is one of Europe’s Big Three powers, alongside France and the UK.

And with the US and Russia now pow-wowing bilaterally, about, but not with, Ukraine, it feels like a global return to big-power politics.

But Germany has been MIA [missing in action] for a good while now on the European and the world stage. The outgoing government here was weakened and distracted by vicious internal bickering. This infuriated German voters – who wanted urgent focus on the economy and migration – and European allies, demanding action on Russia, security and defence.

Merz says a top priority for Germany is to re-engage internationally.

The country is already the second-biggest donor of military aid to Ukraine, after the US.

Merz wants to continue that support, but, unlike France and the UK, he’s been reticent about the idea of sending soldiers to Ukraine, to back up an eventual ceasefire there.

Based on Germany’s track record though – it dragged its heels at every stage of Ukraine support, and despite that, ended up delivering more aid than any of its European neighbours – a ‘No’ now, doesn’t mean a ‘No’ forever to committing troops or participating in whatever form a European “reassurance force” in Ukraine may take.

For now, the soldiers Germans most worry about are the 35,000 American ones, stationed in their country, that make them feel safe.

It’s highly unusual for foreign policy to be a top voter concern at election time. But in Germany this weekend, alongside the economy and migration, voter after voter said they worried about peace in Europe and felt very insecure.

Back in November, Germany’s interior ministry said it was drawing up a list of bunkers that could provide emergency shelter for civilians.

Ukraine may be far away, but Germans feel at great risk from Russia for two reasons.

Firstly, the amount of military equipment their country has sent Ukraine. The far right, Alternative for Germany (AfD), with its “Germany First” slogan, campaigned for Berlin to disengage from Kyiv and to re-establish relations with Russia. A strategy not unlike Donald Trump’s, as the party is fond of pointing out.

Secondly, many in Germany think that if Russia wanted to really destabilise Europe, it might be tempted to strike one of the Big Three with a long-range missile.

France and the UK are nuclear powers. Germany is not. Even its conventional military is woefully understaffed and underequipped (to the immense irritation of European partners), so Germany fears it’s a soft target.

All the more so if President Trump withdraws his active servicemen and women from Germany.

He has pledged to significantly reduce US troop presence in Europe as a whole.

The German sense of deep domestic insecurity prompted Friedrich Merz to suggest last week that he’d look to France and Britain to form a European nuclear umbrella, to replace US nuclear guarantees.

It’s an idea that’s easy to bring up on the campaign trail, but that in reality is hugely complex – involving questions of capabilities, commitment and control.

The reality check: Friedrich Merz will need a lot of money for his plans to secure Germany and Europe, and Germany’s economy is depressed.

He also has to reach agreement with the coalition partner, or partners, with whom he’ll form the next German government – as well as with other European countries, like the UK.

And they may not want to strike such a strident tone against the US.

This election may herald stronger leadership from Germany. But is the rest of Europe ready?

Friedrich Merz, the 69-year-old conservative leader, is in pole position to become Germany’s next chancellor, in a vote closely watched in Europe and the US.

He promises to fix most problems in four years – a tall order for Europe’s biggest economy and a creaking infrastructure.

If Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) win, he will need to forge an alliance with at least one other party, most likely Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, whose government collapsed late last year.

On the eve of the vote, Merz was adamant there would be no deal with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is poised to become the second biggest political force, ahead of Scholz’s centre-left party.

Some 59.2 million Germans are eligible to vote, and while millions already have by post, polls indicate as many as 20% were undecided ahead of election day.

The polls close at 18:00 (17:00 GMT) with a clear idea of a result likely to emerge during the evening.

Voters are energised by this pivotal election, and campaigning continued right through Saturday evening with a final debate on national TV – the ninth this month.

This is a watershed moment as Germany will have to make big decisions on the world stage as well as at home.

Merz promises strong leadership in Europe, but Berlin is also under pressure to loosen the budget strings for its military.

As Ukraine’s second-biggest provider of military aid, Germany’s next government will face a US president who has condemned President Volodymyr Zelensky as a dictator and fractured the West’s united front against Russia.

German political leaders have also been shocked by US Vice-President JD Vance, who has met the AfD’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, and called for an end to the long-standing taboo of talking to the far-right.

In Germany, that taboo is known as a firewall or brandmauer.

Merz was accused of breaking it last month when he used their support in parliament. There were protests against the far-right in several German cities on Saturday.

The AfD is already popular in several eastern states, but is rapidly growing in the west too, attracting support among younger Germans via TikTok.

One Weidel campaign video has had four million views.

Her message is simple: Vote AfD, break the firewall and change German politics.

But its voice has been loudest on migration and security after five deadly attacks since last May, including three during the election campaign in Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg and Munich – all allegedly carried out by immigrants.

A stabbing at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial on Friday night has kept the issue in the headlines. The victim survived, and police said the attacker was Syrian and his motive antisemitic.

The AfD has embraced a highly controversial policy called “remigration”, which it defines as deporting migrants who have committed crimes. But the term can also refer to the mass deportation of migrants and their descendants.

The anti-immigration party has already secured a foothold in parts of the west, especially in Germany’s old industrial heartland in the Ruhr valley.

In last summer’s European elections it won the vote in some northern areas of the city of Duisburg, with 20% in Marxloh, 25% in an adjacent area and 30% next door to that.

Marxloh is a vibrant district with a large immigrant community, known for its array of shops selling Turkish fashionwear for brides.

But it has also suffered extensively from the decline of the coal and steel industry and a lack of government investment.

In a park close to Marxloh’s remaining steelworks, five young men in their early 20s explained why they all planned to vote AfD.

“We’re young, we need work and they don’t give us a chance to find training,” one man complained.

“We’ve no money; everything’s more expensive; there aren’t many jobs any more and there’s so much dirt here.”

The AfD is not known for its social policies, but its message on security cuts through, and this group does not see the anti-immigration party as extreme.

“No, they’re just normal people.”

In the east, it is in the rural areas where the AfD does best, but in the west it is growing in cities that have lost their industrial base, says Prof Conrad Ziller of the University of Duisburg-Essen.

“Voices of people in favour of the AfD have become so loud, so if you’re in a doctor’s waiting room it’s really common to hear people chat about getting angry about the established politicians and government.”

Migration is the most common frustration, and he believes Weidel has capitalised on that by appearing so prominently in all the TV debates.

Often when the debate touched on the economy, social justice or inequality, Prof Ziller said “the AfD deflected it and said the main problem is not economics, it’s migration, and the government didn’t do a good job”.

While the opinion polls have been consistent about who is leading the race, some of the parties might not make it over the 5% threshold for the newly slimmed-down parliament.

If fewer parties make it into the 630-seat Bundestag, it will be more straightforward to form a coalition with a majority.

The economic liberals, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), were in the outgoing government but risk oblivion on Sunday along with left-wing populist party BSW.

The Left party, however, has seen a resurgence in recent days and pollsters suggest it will become the fifth largest party after the Greens.

Friedrich Merz, 69, is a familiar face of his conservative party’s old guard.

Politically, he has never come across as exhilarating. And yet he promises to provide Germany with stronger leadership and tackle many of his country’s problems within four years.

His explosive bid to tighten migration rules with the support of far-right votes in parliament reveals a man willing to gamble by breaking a major taboo.

It also marks yet another clear break from his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party’s more centrist stance under his former party rival Angela Merkel.

Although Merz ultimately failed to change the law, he had launched a lightning bolt into an election campaign triggered by the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government late last year.

Famously sidelined by Merkel before she became chancellor, he quit parliament entirely to pursue a lucrative series of corporate jobs and was written off as yesterday’s man.

But there is a sense of inevitability that this 69-year-old comeback kid might be on the cusp of clinching the job he has coveted for so long.

It is 23 January, one month until Germany’s snap federal election, and people have gathered in one of Berlin’s five-star hotels to hear Merz give a foreign policy speech.

The buzz around the “ballroom” in the Hotel de Rome isn’t exactly electric – but it is a far cry from 20 years ago, when his political career looked over.

Merz is also a licensed pilot, who drew criticism in 2022 for flying to the north German island of Sylt in his private plane for the wedding of fellow politician Christian Lindner.

As he takes to the stage in the Hotel de Rome, there’s polite applause for the leader of Germany’s conservative CDU opposition, who are consistently ahead in the polls.

Tall, slim, in a suit and glasses, Merz cuts a calm, conventional, business-like figure as he tries to project a readiness for power.

But it has been a winding journey to get to this point.

Merz was born in the west German town of Brilon in 1955 into a prominent conservative, Catholic family.

His father served as a local judge, as does Friedrich Merz’s wife Charlotte to this day.

The younger Merz joined the CDU while still at school.

In an interview 25 years ago with German newspaper Tagesspiegel he laid claim to a wilder youth than his strait-laced CV might suggest.

Among his misadventures, he described racing through the streets on a motorcycle, hanging out with friends by a chip stand and playing the card game Doppelkopf in the back of the class.

A teenage party he referenced ended up with a group of students taking a collective pee in the school aquarium, according to Der Spiegel magazine.

There is some scepticism that the teenage Merz was much of a rabble-rouser. A former classmate recalled that the young Friedrich’s disruptive behaviour more often amounted to simply wanting “the last word”.

Whether on or off the record, people who have known him have told me he enjoys a beer and can indeed be fun, though few were able to offer an anecdote to illustrate this.

After school, he went on to military service before studying law and marrying fellow student Charlotte Gass in 1981.

The couple have three children.

For a few years, Merz worked as a lawyer but he always had his eye on politics and was elected to the European Parliament in 1989, aged 33.

“We were both quite young and very fresh and let’s say unspoilt,” says Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, who became an MEP at the same time for the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

She found the young Merz to be serious, reliable, honest and polite.

Even humorous – a quality that she feels is less obvious now: “I assume the amount of bruises over time might have hardened him a bit.”

But did he come across early in his career as a potential chancellor?

“I would have probably have said no, no way. Come on, you must be kidding!”

Yet everyone knew him to be deeply ambitious and Merz soon made the switch from EU politics to Germany’s national parliament, the Bundestag, in 1994.

He rose through the ranks, touted as a talent on the party’s more right-wing, traditionalist faction.

“He’s a splendid speaker and a profound thinker,” says Klaus-Peter Willsch, a CDU member of the Bundestag who has known him for more than 30 years.

“A fighter,” says Willsch, evidenced by the fact that Merz made three attempts to lead his party.

His first two failures, in 2018 and January 2021, could also be read as a sign of his struggle to woo the grassroots.

But it was back in the early noughties, when his ambitions were initially derailed, that he lost out to Angela Merkel in a party power struggle.

Merkel, the understated quantum chemist from the former communist east, and Merz, the overtly-assured lawyer from the west, never much saw eye-to-eye.

Merz glosses over this bitter episode in a brief autobiographical post on the CDU website, saying that by 2009 he had decided to leave parliament to “make room for reflection”.

His years of reflection involved forging a career in finance and corporate law – becoming a boardroom executive at various international firms and, reputedly, a millionaire.

It would be more than a decade before he returned to parliament, where he has since sought to rip up Merkel’s more centrist doctrine on CDU conservatism.

A marked moment of political severance came at the end of last month, when Friedrich Merz pushed through a non-binding motion on tougher immigration rules, by relying on votes from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

He insisted there had been no direct collaboration with the AfD, but his move led to mass protests and has twice been condemned by none other than Merkel herself.

These are rare public interventions by the woman who ruled Germany for 16 years.

Detractors say it was an unforgivable election gambit that will only benefit the AfD, but supporters insist Merz is, in fact, seeking to lure people cleverly from the far right.

He has risked alienating more moderate parts of the electorate before, voting in the 1990s against a bill that included the criminalisation of marital rape.

He later explained that he considered marital rape to already be a crime, and it was other issues in the bill that he objected to.

Polls suggest he is not especially popular among young people and women – but Klaus-Peter Willsch believes the picture painted of him in German media is unfair.

“I had him several times in my constituency,” he tells me. “Afterwards, women come up and say he’s a nice guy.”

Charlotte Merz has likewise come to his defence, telling the Westfalenpost: “What some people write about my husband’s image of women is simply not true.”

She says their marriage has been one of mutual support: “We both took care of each other’s jobs and divided the childcare in such a way that it was compatible with our professional obligations.”

His popularity will be put to the test in Sunday’s election, and also as speculation focuses less on whether they will win and more on who they might form a coalition with.

Whatever the critiques, one EU diplomat told me Brussels was “anxiously awaiting his arrival”.

“It’s time to move on from this German deadlock and get that motor running.”

Conservative frontrunner Friedrich Merz told supporters that under his leadership, Germany would take responsibility in Europe, and that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) would be consigned to the political margins once more.

He will end his Christian Democrat party’s campaign with a rally in Munich, while his rivals will make a final appeal in a TV “speed-dating” programme with voters.

For months German politics has been paralysed by the collapse of the previous government.

Now, hopes have been raised across Europe that this vote will bring some certainty to the EU’s biggest democracy and its biggest economy, which has struggled to escape from lingering recession.

Nothing will change overnight. No party can govern without forming a coalition, and that will take weeks.

Reviving the economy has been one of the two big issues of the campaign; the other has been migration and security, thrust on Germany’s politicians by a series of deadly attacks since May 2024.

The cities of Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg and Munich have all suffered grievous attacks. A Spanish tourist was stabbed at the Holocaust memorial in the centre of Berlin on Friday night, although his wounds are not considered life-threatening.

All the alleged attackers were immigrants, and the AfD under Alice Weidel has advanced to about 20% in the polls with its nationalist, anti-immigration message.

She has appealed to younger voters on social media, and is far ahead in the race on TikTok, with 870,000 followers. She has also been buoyed by support from both billionaire Elon Musk and US Vice-President JD Vance, who has been accused of meddling in the German campaign.

The AfD talks of securing Germany’s borders and deporting migrants who came illegally and committed crimes. But she uses the word “remigration” which has also been linked to mass deportations.

In Solingen, where a Syrian was accused of stabbing to death three people last August, hundreds of people turned out on Friday night to speak out against the rise of the far right.

“We have a lot of friends who grew up in Germany whose parents did not,” said one woman called Natalie, 35. “We don’t want anybody to kick them out and we don’t want our borders closed.”

One man called Jochen held up a sign that read “Never Again is Now!”

There was a large police presence at the protest, and Friday night’s stabbing in Berlin has heightened security fears.

A police union spokesman has warned of a risk of attacks aimed at destabilising democracy.

All the mainstream parties have ruled out working with the AfD in government, but if it polls higher than 20% it could double its number of seats to 150 in the 630-seat parliament.

Merz’s most likely partner is Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, although probably without Scholz himself. The message from his centre-left SPD as the final day of campaigning began was that every vote counts, and if Germans wanted a strong government they needed a strong SPD.

The Social Democrats are languishing in third in the polls, but Scholz is pinning his hopes on an estimated one in five undecided voters who could make a big difference.

Friedrich Merz was in a relaxed and confident mood when he appeared on stage this week in front of 1,200 supporters in the tech-hub city of Darmstadt near Frankfurt. But his message was stark as he turned his thoughts to Donald Trump’s presidency.

One hand in his pocket and the other holding the microphone, he spoke of unprecedented times and a “tectonic shift in the world’s centres of power”.

“A political order is now crumbling. What we have become used to for decades is breaking down.” He was not even sure if the US would join Germany in celebrating the 70th year of its accession to Nato in the summer.

He castigated the outgoing government for failing to take a leading role on the international stage.

“The German government and chancellor must finally take on a leading role in Europe again. If I’m elected I will spend a significant part of my time keeping this European Union together.”

Germans have had almost nightly opportunities to see their political leaders thrash out the big issues in TV debates, and Alice Weidel has been in the thick of them, sharing the stage with both Merz and Scholz.

In the run-up to the vote she met Vice-President JD Vance, who castigated German politicians for raising a “firewall” against the far right and of ignoring “the will of the voters”.

That firewall – brandmauer in German – has held strong since the end of the war, although Merz himself was accused of breaking it when he relied on the support of the AfD last month in a motion on migration.

He has faced demonstrations ever since, and there was a noisy protest when he visited Darmstadt.

PhD student Annika, 29, held a Herz statt Merz banner – love instead of Merz. “He says he won’t do something with the far-right AfD, but his actions contradict what he says. I don’t trust him at all.”

Merz appears to have been stung by the outcry and has sought to reassure voters there will be “no tolerance, no minority government [with the AfD], nothing at all”.

The protests came after some parties voted alongside the far-right party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), over a non-binding resolution on immigration last week.

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz, who is tipped to be Germany’s next chancellor, had tried to rely on support from AfD twice last week, including for a bill aimed at curbing immigration.

The move sparked anger among many, with organisers of the demonstration saying people had turned out to condemn what they see as a breach of the country’s agreement not to work with the far right at the national level.

The demonstrations come three weeks before national elections and follow similar protests across Germany on Saturday.

Police estimate that about 160,000 people came out to protest on Sunday. The rally began just outside the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament building and moved on towards the CDU’s headquarters.

Protester Anna Schwarz, 34, told AFP she was joining a political rally for the first because “we can no longer avert our gaze”.

“(We want to) make as much noise as possible to call for the self-described ‘democratic’ parties to protect this democracy,” she said.

The CDU is leading in the polls ahead of Germany’s snap election this month. The AfD is currently polling in second place, although Merz has ruled out any kind of coalition with them.

On Wednesday, a non-binding motion over changes to immigration law passed through Germany’s parliament.

Two days later, a bill aimed at reducing immigration numbers and family reunion rights was rejected by Germany’s parliament by 350 votes to 338. The bill was put forward by the CDU and backed by the far-right.

The strategy was widely condemned, including by Merz’s predecessor as CDU leader and former chancellor Angela Merkel, who accused him of turning his back on a previous pledge not to work with AfD in the Bundestag.

Merz defended his actions as “necessary” and said he had not sought the party’s support.

“A right decision doesn’t become wrong just because the wrong people agree to it,” he said last week.

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz, who is tipped to be Germany’s next chancellor, had tried to rely on support from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party for the second time in a week – but the bill was defeated by 350 votes to 338.

The strategy was widely condemned, including by Merz’s predecessor as CDU leader and former chancellor Angela Merkel, who accused him of turning his back on a previous pledge not to work with AfD in the Bundestag.

Merz defended his actions as “necessary” and said he had not sought the party’s support.

“A right decision doesn’t become wrong just because the wrong people agree to it,” he said.

The CDU leader had been hoping that a tougher stance on migration would win over supporters of the AfD – but his reliance on that party for this vote risks losing more moderate voters.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Germany on Thursday night in opposition to the CDU’s cooperation with the far-right.

The CDU is leading in the polls ahead of Germany’s snap election next month. The AfD is currently polling in second place, although Merz has ruled out any kind of coalition with them.

Wednesday’s vote saw a non-binding motion over changes to immigration law pass through parliament. Friday’s vote was on draft legislation which was aimed at curbing immigration numbers and family reunion rights.

The proposed legislation was opposed by parties including current Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD). Scholz is among those to have criticised Merz’s reliance on the AfD, calling it an “unforgivable mistake”.

“Since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany over 75 years ago, there has always been a clear consensus among all democrats in our parliaments: we do not make common cause with the far-right,” he said.

In a rare political intervention, Merkel said Merz was breaking a pledge made in November to work with the SDP and the Greens to pass legislation, not the AfD. She described the pledge as an “expression of great state political responsibility”.

On Wednesday, Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD, accused mainstream parties of disrespecting German voters by refusing to work with her party.

Sections of the AfD have been classed as right-wing extremists by domestic intelligence.

Germany’s already fraught debate on immigration has flared up following a series of fatal attacks where the suspect is an asylum seeker, most recently in the city of Aschaffenburg.

It has become a central issue in campaigning for the election, which was triggered by the collapse of Scholz’s governing coalition.

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative CDU party, may need AfD votes to pass legislation toughening immigration laws.

Former chancellor Angela Merkel has accused him of turning his back on a previous pledge not to work with AfD in the Bundestag.

Merz has defended his actions as “necessary” and said that he had not sought nor wanted AfD’s support.

“A right decision doesn’t become wrong just because the wrong people agree to it,” he said.

On Friday morning the CDU said it had requested a pause ahead of the vote and appeared to be holding talks on whether the legislation should be voted on or sent back to committee.

The CDU is leading in the polls ahead of Germany’s snap election next month. The AfD is currently polling in second place, although Merz has ruled out any kind of coalition with them.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Germany on Thursday night in opposition to the CDU’s cooperation with the far-right.

While Wednesday’s vote saw a non-binding motion over changes to immigration law pass through parliament, actual legislation will be tabled on Friday aimed at curbing immigration numbers and family reunion rights.

However, his proposed measures are highly unlikely to come into effect this side of February’s snap election and – if they did – could clash with EU law.

The proposed legislation is opposed by parties including current Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD). Scholz is among those to have criticised Merz’s reliance on the AfD, calling it an “unforgivable mistake”.

“Since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany over 75 years ago, there has always been a clear consensus among all democrats in our parliaments: we do not make common cause with the far right,” he said.

In her rare intervention in politics, Merkel said he was breaking a pledge made in November to work with the Social Democratic Party and the Greens to pass legislation, not the AfD. She described the pledge as an “expression of great state political responsibility”.

Alice Weidel, the leader of the AfD, meanwhile, accused mainstream parties on Wednesday of disrespecting German voters by refusing to work with her party.

Sections of the AfD have been classed as right-wing extremists by domestic intelligence, but

Wednesday’s vote saw Germany’s already fraught debate on immigration has flared up following a series of fatal attacks where the suspect is an asylum-seeker, most recently in the city of Aschaffenburg.

It has become a central issue in campaigning for the election, which was triggered by the collapse of Scholz’s governing coalition.