Germany’s conservative opposition won the most votes in the snap national election as mainstream parties vowed to fight a surge in far-right support off the back of a spate of terror attacks and economic turmoil.
Provisional results released on Monday confirmed that Friedrich Merz, leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union, was likely to be the next chancellor. They also showed that the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, had surged to become the nation’s second-largest party.
