German Chancellor Merz ‘shocked’ by far-right AfD win and other news stories | Global News Podcast

This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. On Friday the 7th of September, we'll go to Germany where Chancellor Friedrich Mertz says he is shocked by the farright AFD's victory in state elections.

As Ukraine holds talks with Donald Trump's envoys, our correspondent in Kev says Russia is launching strikes in broad daylight. >> Yet again, more sirens ringing across the sky. Some of the students are coming out. They're heading down into the metro to get underground for

safety. >> We'll go to Lebanon where state media says at least nine people were killed by Israeli attacks. And we'll find out why so many Serbs are paying tribute to the former military commander and convicted war criminal

Ratcom Ladic at his funeral. The German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz has said that he is shocked by the victory of the farright party alternative for Germany. the AFD.

It won its biggest victory yet in elections in the eastern state of Saxonyhalt, taking 44% of the vote, while Mr. Mertz's conservative CDU party came way behind with around 18%. The AFD, which has tapped into growing disillusionment with centrist

parties once, among other policies, to ban LGBTQ rainbow flags in schools and have the children of refugees taught in segregated classes. Mr. The Mertz says the country is facing a huge political

shift. His words were spoken by a translator >> with almost 60% of the voters in one German state vote for political parties which profoundly question the democratic rules of our country. That's an election result which doesn't make it possible to

continue with business as usual and we don't. It has an impact on us, even on myself personally. And I I also have to accept that this is the worst electoral defeat that the CDU has suffered in years, if not decades.

>> Our Europe correspondent, Jessica Parker, is in Saxony Anne Halt's capital, Magdabberg. She spoke to my colleague Lucy Hawings. The AFD has been consistently polling um at 40 40 plus percent.

Perhaps the party's critics and opponents were hoping that those polls were very wrong. Uh but it turns out of course that they were not. I suppose what is particularly bad for Chancellor Friedrich Mertz

is that his party, the Conservative CDU party performed worse than had been expected getting under according to these projections we've had under 20%. And as he was sort of acknowledging there um his own personal poor approval ratings sort of tacitly acknowledged might

have played a role in what has happened here in Saxony Nanhal. But that being said and I guess addressing rumors about you know whether this uh chancellor can see out his term in office.

He was basically saying I'm sticking around. I'm going to keep carrying out the reforms that I've um got planned with my uh coalition and we just need to start communicating better in terms of what we want to do.

I think alternative uh for Deutseland which is a party that argues that uh the other parties CDU SPD have got things fundamentally wrong in areas like immigration over past years. uh they will say that this is part of the

sort of same old uh centrist policies that have uh failed to deliver for the people of Germany or parties that are regarded as kind of from the traditional mainstream of German politics. As far as what's happening now here today, um the

AFD of course potentially casting around for how it might be able to actually get into government in Saxanhal, but we could be in for a protracted weight on that front as is quite normal in German politics. >> What other messages and uh what part of their campaign