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Germany and France Tip Ever Rightward in Weekend Regional Elections
Hotair ^
| 03/23/2026
| Beege Welborn
Posted on 03/23/2026 9:00:29 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
It was a regional election palooza in France and Germany this weekend. In France, it was Round Two of the march toward the national presidential elections, with a lame-duck Emmanuel Macron's presidency up for grabs. In Germany, it's waffling and wounded German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's desperate bid to avoid losing more Christian Democrat (CDU) seats in regional parliaments to either Alice Weidel's populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party or, even more inexplicably, a resurgent Green party.
In France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) went into the second round of elections hoping to win major cities' mayoral races, but, much as two years ago, when the deal-making behind the scenes foiled Le Pen's near-triumph over Macron, the same thing happened. Agreements were reached, and opposing candidates dropped out to bolster the chances of anyone but the RN candidate winning, all in an effort to deny the right-wing RN the seats they so prized.
It worked four times out of five in the major races. But the evening was still marked by huge gains across the board for Le Pen's party, much to the chagrin of the plotters. Additionally, the only Socialists who were successful were those who had avoided the radical Left as they campaigned.
Socialists and allies held on to power France's big four cities - Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Lille - on a local election night that offered hopes for mainstream parties in next year's presidential elections.
The new aspirants of the far-left and far-right also made gains – notably in Nice for an ally of Marine Le Pen and Roubaix in the north for the France Unbowed (LFI) party.
But the big lesson of the evening was the failure of alliances between mainstream left and LFI, with voters turning to the centre and right in long-time Socialist Party (PS) strongholds like Clermont-Ferrand and Brest.
On the contrary, in cities like Paris, Marseille and Lille – where incumbent Socialists steered clear of the far-left because of accusations of sectarian anti-Semitism in its ranks – left-wing administrations were comfortably returned.
Nice turned out to celebrate dumping their Socialist.
And the rightward shift in voter sentiment across the country was evident in the returns when they were mapped.
RN was hoping for victories in 40 smaller cities and towns, and they wound up with 70.
Le Pen will learn in July whether her appeal against her ban from running in the election is overturned or she must sit this one out.
As reviled as she and her party are by the establishment, I wouldn't want to place a bet on it being overturned. If it's not, her deputy will stand in her place
...The ruling should decide whether Le Pen gets another chance to seek the highest office. If the court sides with prosecutors and maintains a lengthy election ban, the surging National Rally is expected to field 30-year-old Jordan Bardella as its presidential candidate.
In Germany, Merz was already reeling from regional elections two weeks ago in a longtime CDU stronghold, where he had personally invested time and effort only to see a resurgent Green party triumph and the AfD come roaring out of nowhere, buoyed by disenchanted autoworkers' support.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, the CDU had a very good showing, vanquishing the long-dominant area Socialist Democrats (SPD), but it wasn't all wine and roses. That bad news was that Weidel's AfD tripled its former numbers, picking up a tremendous percentage gain to come in third.
These are truly dramatic times for the SPD, Germany’s oldest political party. Yesterday it lost the state election of Rhineland-Palatine, a state it governed for 35 years. The party fell by almost 10pp to 25.9%. The winner is the CDU at 31%. The AfD more than doubled its share of the vote to 19.5%. This is becoming a pattern in German politics.
The CDU’s firewall against the AfD means that it has only a single coalition option – another so-called grand coalition with the SPD as a junior partner. This is the same constellation as in federal level last year. It is becoming a problem for the CDU, but right now, the SPD’s problem is the more urgent one. The party’s leadership duo, Lars Klingbeil, finance minister, and Bärbel Bas, labour minister, are facing calls to resign.
Politico was a little chirpier about it, but there no's denying underlying strength of AfD and it has to be spooking the establishment. This is going to force some recalculating on the coalition side of Merz's party, and, again, only serve to further weaken CDU's attempts to use a coalition to keep AfD isolated from governing.
Merz’s conservatives win key state vote despite far-right surge
When the only ones left to join a coalition are the Greens that the CDU has been trying to distance itself from in their efforts to appeal to the German voters that AfD has been steadily peeling away from them, Merz has his hands full and a shaky government.
For her part, Weidel is feeling her electoral oats and is looking to amass such numbers that no one will be able to gainsay her party a place in the government at long last.
...The election in Rhineland-Palatinate was the second of five state races to be held this year in what Germans are calling a Superwahljahr — or “super election year” — that is seen as a key test of the national mood as the AfD seeks to overtake Merz’s conservatives in national polls. The AfD is on track to secure big victories in two eastern states in votes set for September, according to polls.
“We have achieved record results,” Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders, said on Sunday. “Voters appreciate the work we’ve done as opposition party, and we will continue on this path so that we can join the government in the next election.”
She also has elections coming up this fall in very AfD-friendly territory, which could completely shift the dynamic for the first time. As in, polls are forecasting the possibility of an absolute AfD majority in one of the contests.
...The AfD has increasingly been hitting Merz on that theme, with some success. In two states in the former East Germany where elections are set for September, the AfD is so far ahead in polls that its leaders hope to secure an absolute majority in at least one of the contests, a result that would bring the party to real governing power for the first time since its founding in 2013.
“While you go on and on about world politics, German industry is collapsing,” Weidel, the AfD leader, told Merz in the Bundestag earlier this week. “The exodus is in full swing.”
A delight and a disaster.
And a determined shift to the right on the part of European voters...
🇩🇪 Germany: Alice Weidel's Alternative for Germany (AfD) doubled its results in state elections, securing its best finish ever and driven by younger voters.
🇸🇮 Slovenia: Former Prime Minister Janez Jansa and his populist Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) is tied with incumbent Robert Golob and his center-left party.
...no matter what deals are struck in back rooms by the fellows who still remain.
At this rate, they may not last much longer, no matter what they do.
TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; France; Germany; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: afd; allleftwingers; bloggers; elections; europe; euroweenies; eussr; fakenews; fakerightwing; fourthreich; germany; nationalrally; tds; theyarenotontheright; tldr; trumphatersall
To: SeekAndFind
While I welcome the results, I hate those maps that try to imply that the country is going one way. It’s much like all those maps that show the US is almost entirely red.
Population centers matter, and this map has no meaning without knowing what the vote was in those high population areas.
2
posted on
03/23/2026 9:15:12 PM PDT
by
VanShuyten
("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.”)
To: SeekAndFind
Great results for AfD in Germany. But much like the United States, the urban cities go further left and the rural and suburban countryside go further right. In Munich, a Green Party candidate won the Mayoral race.
To: SeekAndFind
EXCELLENT post, great information, well-formatted, legible and digestible! Thank you.
4
posted on
03/23/2026 11:40:05 PM PDT
by
Nervous Tick
(Hope, as a righteous product of properly aligned Faith, IS in fact a strategy.)
To: SeekAndFind
It’s interesting to me that in France and Germany, it’s two very persistent WOMEN that are exercising bold and courageous Trumpian leadership in the face of unified progressive deep-state and media opposition, and even lawfare.
FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
...and they’re both blondes, too! okay, that was uncalled for. :-)
5
posted on
03/23/2026 11:48:28 PM PDT
by
Nervous Tick
(Hope, as a righteous product of properly aligned Faith, IS in fact a strategy.)
To: Mozzafiato
It is also important to point out that in Europe, the “right wing” parties are often still very liberal in key ways. Le Pen, for example, still favors keeping France’s retirement age to a ridiculous 62 years old. Her party is just as self-destructive (of France), IMO, as Macron’s, or most others, just in different ways / in a different package.
6
posted on
03/24/2026 12:27:53 AM PDT
by
Paul R.
(Old Viking saying: "Never be more than 3 steps away from your weapon ... or a Uriah Heep song!" ;-))
To: SeekAndFind
Its simply amazing to me that anybody can be stupid enough to vote for the Green party in Germany. The Gaia Worshipers have already dealt a death blow to Germany's all important manufacturing sector with their sheer insanity in thinking they could power a modern industrial economy with unicorn farts.
Germany was the one western country that managed to hang on to their manufacturing and large chemical industries and now with energy costs in Germany being FOUR TIMES the cost in America or China, nobody is investing so much as a plug nickel in Germany anymore. Plants are closing and workers being laid off already with many more to come. There is no turning it around either. Even if they suddenly became sane and reasonable today, by the time they built nuclear and coal fired power plants and got them running, their chemicals and manufacturing sectors would already be dead.
7
posted on
03/24/2026 12:49:38 AM PDT
by
FLT-bird
To: SeekAndFind
If only the French had done this in 1975. They would have been a huge ally and could have bitchslapped the UK into sensible rightward political reforms.
Better late than never, I guess.
8
posted on
03/24/2026 1:57:32 AM PDT
by
caddie
(Going forward we all need to become Trump, and also Captain Obvious, and Charlie Kirk too. )
To: Nervous Tick
Be careful what you wish for, or beware of too much of a good thing. Alice Weigel is a phenomenon, a woman of great presence, highly intelligent, charismatic, photogenic, indomitable and a compelling orator who knows what alone can save Germany and can articulate it in understandable and credible language.
As the face of AFD, Alice Weigel can carry the party to a national majority, or at least to part of a ruling coalition. Her conviction and forensic skill leads one inevitably to compare her to Margaret Thatcher, who came on the British national scene in time to save her nation.
So the AFD under Alice Weigel presents itself as the only political party that clearly sees and clearly articulates the solutions to Germany's managed but inevitable decline. The problems: immigration, energy, and debt.
As long as the ruling CDU/SPD coalition is incapable of halting immigration or even policing immigrants, and remains incapable of halting rising energy costs, AFD is destined to become the ruling party of Germany.
The problem of immigration is a problem of political will that Alice Weigel has become the face of. She leaves the electorate in no doubt that she has the political will to stop the inflow, police criminal aliens, reduce welfare for noncontributing aliens, and restore Germany's sense of its ethnicity. She will make Germany great again.
It is about energy that we Americans should be wary, although on this issue, as in virtually every issue, the AFD is a carbon copy of Donald Trump's MAGA.
We conservatives are fond of recalling the smirking reaction of German politicians to Donald Trump's warning from the podium of the United Nations, about Chancellor Merkel's intention of making Germany dependent on Russian oil and gas with a pipeline. History has thoroughly vindicated Trump and made foolish those who laughed at Trump. Unfortunately for Germany, dependence on Russian oil and gas was more than foolish, the disruption of that supply following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and Germany's decision to largely abstain from buying Russian oil and gas, is bringing Germany to a severe and perhaps unrecoverable recession.
The pace of bankruptcies in Germany is growing among its foundational industries like automobiles and chemicals. Unemployment is mounting while the costs of social services to aliens, welcomed by Chancellor Merkel, are pushing Germany into eventual insolvency. The Greens have forced the dismantling of Germany's nuclear energy plants.
In devastating speech after speech, Weigel hammers the necessity to end voluntary, EU-ordained restrictions on the importation of Russian energy. In this, she regretfully apes the policy of Donald Trump to abandon support of Ukraine. She wants complete trade with Russia, even Putin's Russia, even while Russia wages an illegal, aggressive war. More, she wants close alliance and trade with Russia and China.
Like Trump, AFD recognizes the connection between energy and national security and national prosperity.
She wants American nukes out of Germany and Europe, she would undoubtedly withdraw from the EU and NATO to pursue a policy of alignment with Russia and China at least on a trade level and probably more broadly.
In other words, she takes seriously Donald Trump's admonition that nation states should act with reference only to their national interests. Those interests inevitably get defined as short-term, selfish, and isolationist.
Indeed, she takes Donald Trump's admonition so seriously that she opposes Donald Trump's war in Iran. She is fully MAGA.
AFD, so forcefully represented by Alice Weigel, might be the only party that can save Germany but that will come at a cost to America's security in the long run.
She, Donald Trump, and many conservatives who are but reflexive supporters of Trump, are misguided in a policy that will dissolve those alliances that keep America secure as these alliances have kept America secure for three-quarters of a century and the destruction of which will leave us isolated, alone, and vulnerable.
Even Donald Trump is flexible enough to unencumber himself from the strictures of MAGA in the long-term interests of the nation concerning Iran. How Trump will view the long-term interests of the United States with respect to China is not yet clear. But what is clear is that Alice Weigel and her party will not be with us as and when we need them against a rising, belligerent China whose aggression might well resemble Putin's.
We should be careful what we wish for and beware of too much of a good thing.
9
posted on
03/24/2026 2:01:09 AM PDT
by
nathanbedford
(Attack, repeat, attack! - Bull Halsey)
To: nathanbedford
Angela Merkel hasn’t been chancellor of FDR since 2021. Are you writing from a position of knowledge or merely opinion?
10
posted on
03/24/2026 2:19:59 AM PDT
by
Nervous Tick
(Hope, as a righteous product of properly aligned Faith, IS in fact a strategy.)
To: Nervous Tick
Angela Merkel hasn’t been chancellor of FDR since 2021. Are you writing from a position of knowledge or merely opinion? It was Angela Merkel who opened the floodgates in 2015 with her so-called humanitarian policy concerning immigrants. When the flood of immigrants later caused German public opinion to turn against her position, she became defensive and modified it, at least vocally. I mentioned Merkel because she is the object of Weigel's scorn for many of her policies, especially energy and immigration.
Merkel has repeatedly defended the strictures placed on Germany's capacity to restrict immigration and expel aliens, which has been a cover for the CDU and frustrated efforts to control the problem.
I can recall debating my German neighbors at 2015 when they all thought how marvelous it was to be so open-minded as to receive these desperate refugees and how enlightened Germany was (compared, of course, to America) for its welcoming policies, its financial support, and its language courses.
So I am stating opinions that come from a certain level of firsthand knowledge.
11
posted on
03/24/2026 3:00:09 AM PDT
by
nathanbedford
(Attack, repeat, attack! - Bull Halsey)
To: nathanbedford
I meant to say, Merkel has defended the
European Union policies concerning immigration, which make it difficult for Germany unilaterally to set policy.
12
posted on
03/24/2026 3:02:21 AM PDT
by
nathanbedford
(Attack, repeat, attack! - Bull Halsey)
To: Nervous Tick
13
posted on
03/24/2026 3:16:24 AM PDT
by
FreedomPoster
(Islam delenda est)
To: nathanbedford
14
posted on
03/24/2026 3:31:30 AM PDT
by
Nervous Tick
(Hope, as a righteous product of properly aligned Faith, IS in fact a strategy.)
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