Twenty-four hours after the shock caused in Germany by the unprecedented alliance between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in a vote on immigration, MPs in the Bundestag on Thursday, January 30, debated another motion... on banning the AfD.

It was a timing coincidence: Launched several months ago by a cross-party group of 124 MPs on the initiative of CDU politician Marco Wanderwitz, former federal government delegate for the Eastern Länder (2020-2021), this motion aimed to ask the Karlsruhe Constitutional Court to examine whether the AfD is unconstitutional, with a view to a possible ban. It comes at a time when the party, which is only 12 years old, is steadily gaining ground: In the latest polls, it garnered over 20% of voting intentions in the parliamentary elections on February 23.

This was the first time that the debate on banning the AfD was held in the Bundestag plenary session. And it took place in particularly tense circumstances. The CDU's historic rapprochement with the AfD the day before, on the initiative of Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democrats' candidate for the chancellorship and the clear favorite in the polls, sparked virulent reactions across the country, with demonstrations in Berlin and Dresden.

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