International media react to AfD election victory in Saxony-Anhalt

The AfD’s sweeping victory in Saxony-Anhalt has become a major story across Europe, with many international newspapers treating the result as a turning point for Germany. The party, classified as far-right in the state, won by a large margin but missed an absolute majority.

Italy’s Corriere della Sera said Germany could not return to its previous state after the election, comparing the result to a wave that cannot be pushed back and a broken vessel whose cracks remain visible. It called the AfD’s triumph historic, even if the party does not enter government.

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The AfD’s triumph has historic proportions, even if it does not enter government.

La Repubblica described the vote as a troubling new page in German history. La Stampa focused on the historical symbolism of a party that, in its view, invokes the Germany associated with Adolf Hitler winning a state election 81 years after his defeat and the devastation of the Holocaust.

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Germany wrote a new page in its history yesterday, and it is an unsettling page.

Swiss newspapers framed the result as a warning for Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the governing coalition in Berlin. The Tages-Anzeiger said state elections often reflect attitudes toward the federal government and called the result a poor judgment on Merz’s coalition. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung said the CDU had suffered the worst result in its history in the state and lost to a party further to its right.

Poland’s Polityka warned of a month of political declarations, attacks on Merz and debates over early federal elections or a possible collapse of the government. It connected those tensions with Germany’s weakening economy, industrial decline and rising unemployment, arguing that a wider crisis could spread across the continent.

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The worst nightmare of the CDU has come true.