The German conservatives will return to the Government in Germany after a three-year hiatus after winning the general elections this Sunday, but they will be forced to quickly form a coalition in a turbulent geopolitical moment and govern with a stronger far-right opposition than ever.

Who is Germany’s election winner and how will he fare against AfD leader Alice Weidel? - Friedrich Merz has taken aim at the US and says Europe must stand up for itself

The leading candidate, Friedrich Merz, a conservative who has adopted many of the AfD’s hard-line positions on immigration, used his closing statement of the debate to promise his voters that he would never allow the AfD into his government. Under him, he said, the firewall would hold.