PARIS — Two polar opposite personalities from France’s fractured left are fighting to emerge as the candidate to stop the dominant far right under Marine Le Pen or Jordan Bardella from winning the presidency in 2027. It’s still about 17 months until an election that threatens to upend the European Union, but a very public battle is already raging between the old-school radical Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the polished pro-NATO more center-leaning Raphaël Glucksmann. It’s a bruising clash, and several observers tracking the presidential race predict the depth of animosity between the two men could further split the left — sapping the possibility of victory in 2027 — rather than establishing a consensus candidate for the crucial second round of the race for the Elysée. Unless one manages to completely overshadow the other, the left will be locked in a civil war for the coming year. “Past presidential elections have shown that two candidates can’t coexist on the left without causing trouble for each other,” said Erwan Lestrohan, research director at French polling institute Odoxa. The two men could hardly be more different. Mélenchon is a 74-year-old hardliner who has run for president three times, nearly making the runoff in 2022 with a campaign calling for hiking the minimum wage, lowering the retirement age to 60 and pulling out of NATO. Glucksmann, 46, is an MEP and staunch supporter of bolstering Europe’s military power. He is also open to billions of euros worth of spending cuts to bring France’s messy public finances into line and believes the country’s contentious pension system should be rebuilt. Given those ideological fault lines, the tone of the contest has unsurprisingly descended into mudslinging. On his preferred communication outlet — his blog — Mélenchon has described Glucksmann as a “fanatic warmonger” and “the darling child of media vacuity.” Punching back on social media and in interviews, Glucksmann has called Mélenchon “a phony patriot who prefers the Kremlin’s spin” and has framed their showdown as a struggle for “a vision of democracy,” accusing the leader of the hard-left France Unbowed party of rose-tinted views of authoritarian regimes in Moscow and Beijing. PERIL IN THE POLLS Over recent weeks, poll after poll has suggested the far right could well have to face a leftist in a run-off in the spring of 2027. “There’s a solid prospect of having a left-wing candidate make the second round,” Lestrohan said. For Mélenchon or Glucksmann, reaching the run-off would be a huge moment. They would have a shot not only at taking the Elysée, but also at shaping the future of the French left — joining the likes of Jean Jaurès and François Mitterrand in the country’s pantheon of progressive icons. More likely for now, however, is the prospect of becoming the first presidential candidate in modern French history to lose to the far right. Neither looks on course to win a second round against the National Rally’s Bardella — seen as a probable runner because of a ban on Le Pen. . Mélenchon is a 74-year-old hardliner who has run for president three times, nearly making the runoff in 2022. | Jerome Gilles/Getty Images A year and a half ahead of the vote, Glucksmann appears to be a stronger second-round candidate. According to an Odoxa poll released last week he is seen as losing by a margin of 42 percent to 58 percent to Bardella, while Mélenchon is seen as losing in a 26 percent to 74 percent landslide. All prospective candidates from the center-right coalition currently in power look set to be wiped out in the first round, except for Édouard Philippe — President Emmanuel Macron’s first prime minister after his 2017 election — though his polling numbers have steadily declined over the past year. SUBSTANCE AND STRATEGY With radically different views come radically different strategies. Glucksmann is convinced the left can win by luring back moderates and former Socialists who ditched the party for Macron’s centrist movement in 2017. An Ipsos survey showed that Glucksmann managed to attract 17 percent of voters who had previously voted for Macron when he led a joint list with the center-left Socialist Party and finished a convincing third in the last European election in 2024. Mélenchon, meanwhile, believes the decisive votes lie in working-class urban areas where turnout is low, but where those who do cast ballots have rallied behind him en masse over the last several electoral cycles. True to his slow-and-steady philosophy — Mélenchon likes to call himself an “electoral turtle” and keeps figurines of the hard-shelled reptile in his office — he has increased his vote share in each Elysée run despite a cantankerous temper. Both approaches have their merits and shortcomings.  Mélenchon could be dragged down by his image as a divisive firebrand, Lestrohan said. “As for Raphaël Glucksmann, his vulnerability stems more from the fact that he is still relatively unknown, and that we do not yet know how capable he is of campaigning, promoting ideas, and, above all, asserting himself in the face of opposition,” said Lestrohan. That concern about Glucksmann has already begun to spread within the Socialist Party’s ranks. While the party backed the MEP in the last two European races, the idea of promoting a candidate from outside their party — Glucksmann leads his own political platform, Place Publique — has drawn skepticism from some Socialists. After a weeks-long media absence, Glucksmann reemerged into the public eye last month when he faced off in a debate with far-right former presidential candidate Éric Zemmour. Glucksmann’s performance was widely viewed as a disappointment — including by Glucksmann himself, who acknowledged he “could have done better.” Raphael Glucksmann, 46, is an MEP and staunch supporter of bolstering Europe’s military power. | Laurent Coust/Getty Images “There’s a scenario in which this all turns into a nightmare,” a Socialist adviser opposed to Glucksmann’s candidacy, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, told POLITICO. “Glucksmann will get crushed by a political beast like Mélenchon. But there’s no chance Mélenchon can come out ahead against Bardella.” US VS. THEM Indeed, although Mélenchon enjoys the support of a loyal core, he garners the highest share of negative opinions of any French politician — even more than Macron — and is vilified by opponents, who accuse him of pushing antisemitic tropes in the context of his pro-Palestinian rhetoric and of defending extremist views. High-ranking members of Mélenchon’s France Unbowed have brushed off his weakness in recent polls, insisting their electorate only tends to mobilize later in campaigns and that the National Rally tends to lose support when the prospect of a far-right victory becomes concrete. “It is impossible to predict what will happen in the second round. Voters never want to decide on scenarios that do not suit them,” said France Unbowed lawmaker and national coordinator Manuel Bompard. “Only when the choice becomes mandatory” do actual voting intentions emerge, he added. Bompard and other party leaders point to last summer’s snap general election in France, which the National Rally was expected to win before finishing an underwhelming third as voters mobilized across party lines to block its path. Back in January 2012, when he launched his first presidential bid, Mélenchon predicted that “in the end, it’ll be between us and them,” with “them” being the far right. Danièle Obono, a prominent France Unbowed lawmaker, said that prophecy still looked likely to come true. “There’s an opposition between our left and the far right … it’s class warfare expressed through the ballot box. This is a moment when the people want a major shake-up that leaves space for either us [the hard left] or them [the far right],” Obono said. Glucksmann’s troops beg to differ. After the release of last week’s poll showing Bardella winning the presidential election, Aurélien Rousseau, a Place Publique lawmaker, took to X. “We knew it, but now it’s clear politically: the RN can win the presidential election,” he said. “On the left, the line held by [Glucksmann] is currently the only one capable of leading the fight.”

ATHENS — Left-wing former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras released his memoir Monday, revisiting Athens’ time on the eurozone’s cliff edge and blasting his ex-Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. In the book, titled “Ithaki” (Ithaca) and spanning 762 pages, Tsipras chronicles his political journey, defends his political choices and attempts some self-reflection. He is also critical of several former allies, particularly firebrand Varoufakis, whom he fell out with during the peak of the 2015 eurozone crisis. Tsipras admitted that he “underestimated the human factor” when choosing him and argues that Varoufakis was “more celebrity than economist.” Tsipras was 34 years old when he became the Syriza party’s leader and oversaw its electoral leap from 4.6 percent in 2009 to 36.3 percent in 2015. The radical left-wing party gained Europe-wide notoriety at the zenith of the financial crisis in 2015, when it looked as though Tsipras and Varoufakis were about to lead Athens out of the eurozone in high-stakes negotiations with German-led debt hawks in the EU. In July 2015, after winning a referendum in which Greeks rejected the EU’s proposed bailout terms — a symbolic victory that ultimately changed little — Tsipras reversed course, accepted a new bailout to keep Greece in the euro and was reelected that September. The former PM, who left office in 2019, repeatedly says in the book that he never truly considered the idea of a so-called Grexit from the eurozone, but confirms the risk was real and part of former German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s plan as Athens’ fiscal woes rattled the common currency. Tsipras wrote that Varoufakis facilitated this with his confrontational approach and strategic brinkmanship until he was “ousted” from the Finance Ministry. “Varoufakis went from being an asset to a negative protagonist. Not only could our potential allies not stand him, but neither could his own colleagues,” he said. Tsipras ultimately soured on his finance minister when Varoufakis presented him with his “Plan B,” which involved introducing a parallel currency using vouchers. “‘Instead of giving money to pensioners and employees, we would print vouchers that they could use to buy goods and services,'” Varoufakis said. When I heard this, I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. I reacted, ‘Are you serious?’” Tsipras recalled. Tsipras also described his government’s attempts to turn to the Kremlin for financial aid. On June 19, 2015, during a meeting in St. Petersburg, Tsipras suggested to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he make a symbolic investment of €200-300 million in Greek government bonds.  “His answer was honest and blunt,” Tsipras said. “Putin said he would rather give the money to an orphanage because, he said, giving it to Greece would be like throwing it in the trash.” He suggested Greece reach an agreement with the Europeans, particularly German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In October, Tsipras stepped down from his parliamentary seat and left Syriza, as speculation mounts that he will form a new party.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music When Europe’s biggest political family crosses the aisle to vote with the far right, something fundamental shifts in Brussels. In this episode, host Sarah Wheaton unpacks the vote that cracked the European Parliament’s cordon sanitaire — and what a newly disciplined, image-polished far right means for Ursula von der Leyen’s shaky centrist alliance. POLITICO’s Marianne Gros and Max Griera take us inside the omnibus showdown; Tim Ross demonstrates how the same forces are reshaping politics across Europe — from the English seaside town of Jaywick to Paris, Berlin and beyond. Plus — Aitor Hernández-Morales brings us a surprising counterpoint from Denmark, where voters pushed back against a left-wing government they felt had leaned too far toward the right.

BRUSSELS — The far right last week broke through the firewall in the European Parliament and is now looking to flex its muscles again to secure a wider set of goals.   Next on the target list: Deporting more migrants, reversing a ban on the combustion engine, new rules on gene-edited crops, and even more red tape reductions for businesses. After decades of being sidelined by mainstream political parties, the far right scored a major victory last week when the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) ditched its traditional centrist allies and pressed ahead with plans to cut green rules for businesses that received the backing of lawmakers on the right. Now that the cordon sanitaire against the far right “has fallen,” there will be space for a right-wing majority to pass legislation “when it comes to competitiveness, in some areas of the Green Deal where they want to scale down the targets or the burdens for the businesses,” Anders Vistisen, chief whip for the far-right Patriots group, told POLITICO.   There’s dispute over how much cooperation actually took place last week, however. The EPP says it did not — and never will — negotiate directly with far-right groups. Instead, the EPP insists it merely puts forward its position, which may or may not be supported by others. “It is a lie that we negotiated with them,” EPP spokesperson Daniel Köster said following the green rules vote, after MEPs from the Patriots claimed there were formal compromises and negotiations between both parties. Yet the Patriots argue that EPP lawmakers, behind the scenes and at committee level, discreetly consult with their right-wing counterparts on areas where they have overlapping priorities. “They coordinate with us quite often on these files,” Vistisen said, “but it is becoming a little bit ridiculous and silly that they don’t just want to own up to it.” The extent of cooperation largely depends on which nationality the center-right lawmakers are from, according to the Patriots. “On a technical level we work constructively with almost all delegations, except with the German EPP,” Roman Haider, top Patriots MEP in the transport committee, told POLITICO, echoing comments from his colleague Paolo Borchia, a member of the industry and energy committee, who said only some national EPP delegations are open to talking. “Cooperation with the German EPP is practically impossible. They refuse any professional interaction with us,” said Haider. For many years, the German center-right has opposed co-operation with the far-right because of the country’s Nazi past. IT’S NOT OVER FOR THE CENTER Any further collaboration has clear boundaries — after all, many far-right lawmakers want to tear the EU down. The EPP also still needs the centre to pass a majority of files, such as the long-term EU budget. However, Italy’s Nicola Procaccini, chair of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (which ideologically sits between the EPP and the Patriots), told POLITICO that the right can easily team up on deregulation, migration, farming, and family issues. However, Italy’s Nicola Procaccini, chair of the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists (which ideologically sits between the EPP and the Patriots), told POLITICO that the right can easily team up on deregulation, migration, farming, and family issues. | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images “In these issues for sure we are closer” on the right side of the Parliament, Procaccini said. He believes the cordon sanitaire, which kept the far right from power, is not dead, but that the first steps in tearing it down have been taken, and parts of the EPP are ready to openly work with the right-wing side of the hemicycle. Liberal and Socialist lawmakers point out the Patriots often coordinate closely with the ECR, which then presents their position to the EPP. According to a parliamentary official, granted anonymity to speak freely, the ECR acts as a “Trojan horse” for the Patriots to circumvent the cordon sanitaire. Asked about future deals with the far right, EPP spokesperson Pedro López de Pablo said: “We are fully committed to working with all our platform partners [Socialists and Democrats, the liberals of Renew] and they know our guiding principle is content, content, content.” Vistisen also acknowledged that, while lawmakers from the Patriots are ready to sit at the table and negotiate on all things related to deregulation and migration, the EPP continues to try to find compromises with the center. “It’s also a question of how many times the EPP wants to look ridiculous in this attempt to pretend that the central majority is the one that can be used to deregulate,” said Vistisen. He added that the EPP, as the Parliament’s biggest force, has the leverage to do whatever it wants and that “the only real negotiating strength that the Socialists have left” is calling a motion of no confidence in Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission president has faced — and comfortably survived — three such motions this year, brought by the far right and the far left. TOUGHER ON MIGRATION One major area where the far-right is hoping to lure the EPP into its arms is migration. In December, the Parliament is expected to vote on a new bill on “safe” non-EU countries to which member states could deport migrants, even if they are not originally from there, which the Patriots hope will be passed with a right-wing majority. They are already claiming that the price of securing their votes a second time will be higher. “We know that the EPP are struggling very much to get liberals and social democrats to play ball,” said Vistisen. “If they want to strike a deal with us, it has to be compromise amendments signed by ECR, EPP and Patriots. That is going to be a testing ground for whether the EPP publicly will make policy with us.” The right-wing majority could find common ground on a new deportations regulation proposed by the Commission in March, a key bill for von der Leyen as she seeks to appease calls from across the bloc for tougher migration policies. The lead negotiators on the file from ECR, Patriots, and the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations group want to pull the EPP away from the center and pass a tougher version of the bill. “In terms of cooperation on the right, what I’ve heard thus far is that both the Patriots and ECR and ESN, but also EPP, are very much on the same line on a great number of issues,” Patriots’ lead negotiator Marieke Ehlers told POLITICO. Ehlers said she is in touch with her EPP counterpart, François-Xavier Bellamy, whose national party, Les Républicains, is advocating tougher migration policies in France.   Fabrice Leggeri, a Patriots MEP, also said that “there are talks or exchanges of views between Patriots for Europe and the EPP”. Bellamy did not respond to a request for comment. CUT, CUT, CUT The European Commission may have found a new ally in its simplification agenda, with right-wing and far-right groups in Parliament eager to tear down policy in the name of cutting bureaucracy and giving power back from Brussels to national capitals. Two of the most explosive files where the right-wing majority could team up are in the automotive sector, as the EPP, pushed by Germany, seeks to slash regulations it says are strangling the car industry. The Commission is set to put forward in December a revision of what is a de facto ban on the combustion engine by 2035, alongside a measure that could set an electric vehicle target for company cars and leasing companies. In Parliament, the EPP could kill both files with the help of the far right. Straight after winning the most seats in the 2024 election, EPP chief Manfred Weber told POLITICO that his group would overturn the 2035 combustion engine ban. The far-right has also made this a major campaign talking point, with the Czech Republic’s Motorist Party basing its entire platform on the issue. The Greens, the Socialists & Democrats and Renew don’t have a unified position on the ban, making things even easier for the EPP and far right to team up. “If the German EPP wants to stand by one of its core pre-election promises, namely ending the phase-out of the combustion engine, then they will have no choice but to work with us,” said Patriots MEP Haider. The digital omnibus, presented by the Commission on Wednesday, is also a potential area where the EPP and Socialists could fail to agree on a way forward, opening the door for a right-wing majority. The bill is being pitched by the Commission as a way to simplify the EU’s digital laws to make life easier for European companies. But the proposal put forward by the Commission on Wednesday seeks extensive changes to the EU’s data protection regulation (GDPR), many to the benefit of AI developers, which the socialists and liberals have said they will block. FARMING TARGETS The right-wing dynamic is also playing out in the talks on Europe’s new rules on gene-edited crops, where exhausted EPP negotiators are quietly weighing far-right votes as a fallback option to break a months-long Parliament deadlock. Italian right-wing lawmakers from the ECR and Patriots could end up delivering the majority needed to push a compromise through — a prospect left-wing MEPs say would result in a deal far too weak to protect the interests of small producers, consumers and the environment. And the next Common Agricultural Policy, the EU’s vast farm-subsidy program, could shift even more dramatically if pushed through with far-right backing. Instead of the slow trend toward stricter environmental and climate obligations, the new coalition arithmetic could deliver a CAP with fewer strings attached, looser oversight and even weaker green conditions, which have been long-standing wishes for both the EPP and far-right groups.

The U.S. on Thursday designated a German far-left group as a “foreign terrorist organization.” “Antifa Ost conducted numerous attacks against individuals it perceives as ‘fascists’ or part of the ‘right-wing scene’ in Germany between 2018 and 2023 and is accused of having conducted a series of attacks in Budapest in mid-February 2023,” according to the U.S. State Department. Commonly known as the Hammerbande (hammer gang), the German far-left group is accused of attacking and severely injuring several people in the Hungarian capital in February 2023. Some of the victims were linked to the far right. The attacks took place around the time of a neo-Nazi gathering, and the perpetrators were reported to have used metal bars and hammers. Legal proceedings are ongoing in both Germany and Hungary. The State Department’s move comes just days after populist-nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán visited his close ally, U.S. President Donald Trump, in Washington. The designation also follows Trump’s September executive order labeling Antifa a domestic terrorist organization in the U.S. Orbán later said he would follow “the American example” and classify Antifa as a terrorist organization in Hungary.

Left-wing European politicians are celebrating Wednesday morning after democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani won New York City’s mayoral election. British Labour Party politician and London Mayor Sadiq Khan was among the first to congratulate Mamdani, saying: “New Yorkers faced a clear choice — between hope and fear — and just like we’ve seen in London — hope won.” The co-chair of The Left group in the European Parliament, French MEP Manon Aubry, also reacted with jubilation. “Faced with the media, economic and political establishment that spent tens of millions of dollars to block his path, he managed to turn the tables with radically concrete proposals […] and without ever turning a blind eye to racism and Gaza,” she said. Aubry and other European left-wing representatives, including a delegation from Germany’s The Left party, traveled to New York to learn lesson from the socialist wunderkind, who collected more than 50 percent of the vote Tuesday. Aubry added: “I saw the power of his campaign in action, led by our allies in the Democratic Socialists of America, which created a real popular momentum and doubled the voter turnout.” Mamdani will be the first Muslim mayor of New York City, and — like London’s Khan — he has been verbally attacked by U.S. President Donald Trump, who suffered a bad night Tuesday with a string of Democratic election victories around the country. Green Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, a frequent foe of Hungary’s populist-nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, also congratulated Mamdani. “How familiar it feels when the central government threatens a candidate it dislikes by saying they won’t receive central support, and instead backs another so-called ‘opposition’ candidate,” he wrote in an Instagram post, in reference to Trump’s late endorsement of independent challenger Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York state. The leader of Germany’s The Left, Heidi Reichinnek, expressed her delight by reposting Mamdani’s winning announcement reel in an Instagram story, adding “Good morning” and a heart emoji. 

PARIS — Zohran Mamdani’s rise from little-known New York state assemblyman to front-runner in the New York mayoral election has sparked a newfound sense of optimism among left-wing politicians in Europe ahead of their own local elections next year. Party strategists from across Europe are making the trek across the Atlantic to learn from the millennial who skyrocketed from anonymity to the precipice of the most important city in the United States (or the world, if you ask a New Yorker). They want to see if Mamdani’s grassroots campaign, which has been laser-focused on affordability issues, will work in their cities and regions as well as it did for him in New York’s Democratic Party primary — and potentially in Tuesday’s general election. Manon Aubry, the French co-chair of The Left group in the European Parliament — which gathers Europe’s democratic socialist, left-wing populist and some communist lawmakers — traveled to New York last week where she took part alongside Mamdani canvassers in the campaign’s final stretch. Aubry and her party, France Unbowed, see Mamdani as an example of how to bring about “radical change” as they look to make a splash in the municipal elections that will take place across France in 2026. Germany’s anti-capitalist party, The Left, sent four officials to the Big Apple to meet with officials including the Mamdani campaign’s chief of strategy, Morris Katz. Party Co-Chair Ines Schwerdtner and Maximilian Schirmer, co-chair of The Left’s Berlin branch, also paid a visit. Liza Pflaum, parliamentary office manager for The Left’s other co-chair, Jan van Aken, said she believed her party had exceeded expectations in Germany’s February federal election by using the same playbook as Mamdani: focusing on cost-of-living issues, courting small donors, and investing heavily in door-to-door volunteer operations. Pflaum expects The Left to use Mamdani’s current campaign as a model for her party’s approach to Berlin’s state legislative election next September. “[He] offers a concrete vision of how people’s lives can actually be improved,” she said. “You can feel it right away here in New York: People have begun to feel hope again.” PUNCHY BEATS BORING French and British politicians say they are particularly impressed with how Mamdani’s team has employed a media strategy leveraging their candidate’s charisma — especially the use of short social media clips to hammer home the affordability message while making him seem relatable. “[Mamdani] winning the Democratic primary is already a major political event, both because of what he ran on and how he ran it: His comms strategy, his use of social media. There’s a lot of things we’ve found inspiring,” said Danièle Obono, a France Unbowed lawmaker who will be hosting a livestream watch party for the election results along with other party leaders on Tuesday. Mothin Ali, deputy leader of the United Kingdom’s Greens, said British politicians tend to make “boring and simple” videos and that the left needed to perfect delivering sound bites in a “punchy” way like Mamdani. Manon Aubry and her party, France Unbowed, see Zohran Mamdani as an example of how to bring about “radical change” as they look to make a splash in the municipal elections that will take place across France in 2026. | Frederick Florin/Getty Images Mamdani’s likely triumph over the experienced but scandal-plagued Andrew Cuomo — the former New York governor who is running as an independent after being defeated by Mamdani in the Democratic primary — is also the latest example of more moderate parties being outflanked by more radical forces at both ends of the political spectrum. France Unbowed has established itself as a dominant force on the left in the decade after former Socialist President François Hollande’s single term ended in disappointment. But while France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has had strong showings in presidential races, the party has struggled to take control of local administrations and to prove it can govern on a radical platform — a gap it hopes to close in next year’s municipal elections. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls for the U.K. shows the Greens have climbed to 14 percent, just 4 percentage points behind Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. The latest Find Out Now poll, released last week, showed the Greens — boosted by new leader Zack Polanski’s brand of “eco-populism” — overtaking Labour for the first time. Germany’s The Left’s has continued to rise gradually since its surprise showing in February and the party is now in a stronger position, polling shows, to challenge its moderate rivals, the Greens and the Social Democrats. The Greens candidate for Paris mayor, David Belliard, said Mamdani’s success in appealing to voters worried about the cost of living, an issue plaguing Parisians as well as New Yorkers, had confirmed his suspicion that his party needed to run a more progressive campaign after spending more than two decades as a junior coalition partner to center-left mayors in the French capital who have done more to make the city greener than cheaper. “We’ve spent a lot of time fighting against the end of the world, but maybe not enough helping people make it to the end of the month,” Belliard said. Victor Goury-Laffont reported from Paris, Nette Nöstlinger from Berlin and Martin Alfonsin Larsen from London.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Ein Gespräch zwischen Beton, Brücke und Bundeskanzleramt: Gordon Repinski trifft Jens Spahn zum Spaziergang durch das Berliner Regierungsviertel und spricht mit dem Unions-Fraktionschef über das Koalitionsklima, den Kanzler und wie sich Deutschland in einer Moll-Stimmung befindet. Spahn erklärt, warum der „linke Empörungszirkus“ über die Stadtbilddebatte für ihn Symbol ist, wie Union und SPD gemeinsam das Land stabilisieren sollen und weshalb für ihn „Mitte rechts“ nicht dasselbe ist wie „rechts der Mitte“. Er spricht über Migration, Rentenpolitik, Wirtschaftswachstum – und darüber, warum das Land wieder Zuversicht braucht. Es geht zu dem um Spahns Verhältnis zu Friedrich Merz, den inneren Frieden mit alten Ambitionen, seine Sicht auf die AfD und seine Haltung zu Trump und den Republikanern. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music French President Emmanuel Macron has gone from “Mr. Europe” eight years ago to the solitary man by the Seine. At the same time, ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s legacy is also going through a sudden and sharp downgrade. How did these centrist pillars of Europe tank so quickly? With parties on the far right and far left rising up in their place, are citizens actually becoming more extreme — or are they just fed up? To discuss these questions, host Sarah Wheaton was joined by John Kampfner — an expert on Germany, Nick Vinocour — our chief foreign affairs correspondent, and Clea Caulcutt — our senior correspondent in Paris. Plus, we dive into the alleged espionage scandal facing Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi.

BERLIN — Germany’s military can’t simply shoot drones in the country’s domestic airspace out of the sky — and much of the reason has to do with protections put in place to avoid a repeat of the country’s Nazi past. The German constitution, adopted in the shadow of World War II, explicitly prevents the military, or Bundeswehr, from taking a key role in the country’s internal security. That’s because those who drafted it were mindful of how German military power had been historically abused by the Nazis and their enablers in domestic politics to target left-wing political forces. But today, amid what appears to be an escalating campaign by the Kremlin to test Europe with a flurry of drone incursions, those constitutional protections are having an unintended side effect: They limit Germany’s ability to defend itself from Moscow’s provocations. “We need to amend the laws so that the only ones able to take care of this — namely the Bundeswehr — are also given the authority to do so,” Thomas Röwekamp, the chair of the defense committee in the German Bundestag and a member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative bloc, told POLITICO. While the Bundeswehr is theoretically able to pick up arms domestically in the event of a major invasion, the drone incursions thus far don’t qualify as sufficiently grave attacks, according to legal experts. The Bundeswehr, based on current law, is only able to shoot down drones over military bases. There’s no evidence that any of the drones that have recently entered German airspace carried weapons. Yet the Kremlin does appear to be using the drones for espionage, according to German authorities. Last year there were reports of unexplained drone sightings over facilities belonging to arms manufacturer Rheinmetall and chemicals group BASF. Germany’s police have the legal right to shoot down such drones if deemed necessary, but they don’t have the technical capability. “The federal police, and also almost all state police forces, currently have no capabilities whatsoever for drone defense,” said defense committee chair Röwekamp. Its forces can, for example, help identify drones or pass on information if requested  — as happened recently when drones were spotted over Munich Airport. | Armin Weigel/Picture Alliance via Getty Images The military has more of those capabilities, but is largely unable to act due in large part to the country’s history. In Imperial Germany and in the pre-World War II Weimar Republic, the German army “was deployed frequently and ruthlessly, usually to strike Social Democrats and left-wing governments,” said public law professor Kathrin Groh of the University of the Bundeswehr Munich. “A repeat of such measures had to be avoided in the 1949 constitution, which is why we have these strict rules for the Bundeswehr today.” ADAPTING TO A ‘NEW REALITY’ That puts German leaders in a bind as they struggle to respond to the Kremlin’s provocations. Currently, the Bundeswehr can only provide what the constitution calls “administrative assistance” in defending against drones. Its forces can, for example, help identify drones or pass on information if requested  — as happened recently when drones were spotted over Munich Airport. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt plans to set up a drone defense unit within the federal police and establish a national drone defense center that allows police, intelligence authorities and the military to pool resources. The minister also intends to push through a law that would allow the military to shoot down drones in German airspace in the event lives are deemed at risk. The constitutionality of such a law, however, remains uncertain. If Dobrindt expects more than the military’s “administrative assistance,” the matter “will end up before the constitutional court,” said Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, a German politician who chairs the Security and Defense Committee in the European Parliament. This is where things get particularly thorny for Merz’s relatively weak coalition of center-right conservatives and center-left Social Democrats. Due to the rise of the political fringes, including the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Merz has one of the weakest majorities in Germany’s postwar history — and is far from possessing the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution. This risks leaving Germany relatively defenseless against the Kremlin’s drone incursions for the foreseeable future — or at least until its police develop the capacity to strike them. Things get particularly thorny for Friedrich Merz’s relatively weak coalition of center-right conservatives and center-left Social Democrats. | Michael Kappeler/Getty Images But the only durable solution, say some, is to change Germany’s constitution to allow the military to take a more active role domestically. “The world has changed and there is no longer any distinction between internal and external security anywhere,” said Röwekamp. “Looking ahead, we must adapt our constitutional provisions to reality.”