Germany’s political establishment has been hit by a result it can no longer easily contain. The AfD took just under 44 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt, leaving the CDU languishing at just over 17 per cent and putting the nationalist-populist party only three seats short of a majority.

Germany’s post-war political order has taken another heavy blow. The AfD won 43.9 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt, crushing Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU on just 17.4 per cent and coming within three seats of an outright majority.

Germany’s political establishment is facing the result it spent years trying to prevent. The AfD’s 43.8 per cent victory in Saxony-Anhalt is not just another eastern protest – GMF sees it as a direct threat to Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Germany’s post-war political order.

Jordan Bardella and Nigel Farage are trying to look less like protest leaders and more like prime ministers-in-waiting. Institut Montaigne sees their Birmingham summit as a calculated credibility operation, with migration and sovereignty used to advertise a new nationalist cooperation across the Channel.

Germany has crossed a political threshold that its mainstream parties can no longer dismiss as an eastern protest. The AfD stormed to 43.8 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its 2021 result and leaving it just three seats short of an outright majority.

Germany’s old image as Europe’s stable, wealthy anchor is cracking fast. Friedrich Merz is struggling with dire approval ratings, infighting inside his CDU and an economy that has barely grown for six years. Meanwhile, the AfD is closing in on real political power as mainstream parties fail to offer voters a convincing route out.

France and Italy have just staged a show of renewed unity at Antibes, but the IRIS note points to the awkward omission: the Indo-Pacific was missing from the serious agenda. That is not a minor diplomatic gap. It is a warning that two major EU powers are still treating the world’s central strategic arena as secondary business.