The success of the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, is a sign of the times. Across Europe, far-right parties once on the fringe have gone mainstream.

Provisional results confirm that mainstream conservatives led by Friedrich Merz won Germany's national election, while a far-right party surged to become the nation’s second-largest.

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.