AfD Tops Poll as Germany’s Most Popular Party

The AfD, an anti-mass immigration party, came second in Germany’s national parliamentary elections, earning nearly 21 percent of the vote.

Germany’s manufacturing sector, the largest in Europe, has had two years of contraction and is expected to broadly stagnate in 2025, according to an EU Commission macroeconomic forecast.

Only 14 percent of poll respondents said they expected the economic situation to improve, while 62 percent anticipated a deterioration, which it said was “the highest pessimism level” of the current year.

Germany is also struggling with the loss of affordable Russian gas, historic Volkswagen plant closures, and fierce competition from cheaper Chinese electric vehicles.

The country has gone through a major population change, with its net population increasing by more than 3.5 million between 2014 and 2024, driven entirely by migration.

During this period, the number of German citizens fell by 2 million to 71.6 million, while the foreign population grew to 13.1 million from around 7.5 million, Statistics Office data showed.

In 2015, under Chancellor Angela Merkel, more than 1 million refugees, many of them from Syria, as well as Afghans and Iraqis, arrived in Germany.

In February’s general election, Merz fell short of forming a majority government, as is often the case in German politics, and, after lengthy negotiations, his party formed a coalition with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

At the time, Merz ruled out the party forming a government with the AfD.

AfD’s policies include strong support for traditional marriage between a man and woman, the preservation of national independence in the face of the European Union’s increasing power, the preservation of German culture amid “European integration” and Islamization, and border security, including the expulsion of illegal immigrants.

Despite gaining considerable proportions of the vote, populist parties such as the AfD have been frozen out of governing coalitions in Europe by political opponents who regard them as extremist.

In Austria, conservatives, Social Democrats, and liberals formed a coalition in March to block the anti-immigration and euro-skeptic Freedom Party from taking power, even after it won an electoral victory with 29 percent of the vote in September 2024.

RN, which recently polled at 35 percent, has increased its voter share ahead of the French presidential elections, which are scheduled to be held in or around April 2027.