Chancellor Friedrich Merz's warning this week that extremism was entering Germany's parliamentary system was the latest in a series of signs that mainstream parties' "firewall" to isolate the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has begun to buckle.
This week, at least four lawmakers from mainstream parties in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt appear to have defied party orders and voted to give the AfD, which wants to restrict immigration and restore energy ties with Russia, its first regional assembly speaker.
