Right, left, center and extreme parties agree on at least one point: This is a historic moment for Germany. For the first time, a text proposed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), advocating tougher immigration legislation, won a narrow majority in the Bundestag thanks to the votes of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party.

Since the end of the Second World War, the far right had always been kept out of parliamentary life by the historical parties of the center, which refused to allow it any collaboration, alliance or even joint vote, in the name of the "firewall" doctrine.

The timing is no coincidence: Germans are preparing to go to the polls in less than four weeks, to elect a new Bundestag on February 23. Led by Friedrich Merz, the CDU is the favorite in the polls, with around 30% of voting intentions, followed by the AfD, around 20%.

The text, adopted on Wednesday, January 29, has above all a symbolic value. It is a non-binding motion, purely declaratory in intent, but presented by Friedrich Merz as a response to the murderous knife attack perpetrated by an undocumented Afghan refugee in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, on January 22. The attack on a group of small children, which claimed two victims including a 2-year-old, has caused a stir in a country still mourning the ram car attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, on December 20, 2024, which killed six people. This was the fourth fatal attack in Germany in the space of eight months.

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