Ten years after the migration crisis, the far right is stronger than ever in Germany.

Berlin"Wir schaffen das"(We will succeed)," proclaimed the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the end of the summer of 2015, in the midst of the refugee crisis in Europe. Merkel's decision to open Germany's doors to refugees between 2015 and 2016 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers, most of them Syrians, divided the country.

That summer, many Germans rallied around the refugees and embraced the Willkommenskultur (welcoming or welcoming culture), which designates the belief that Germany has the duty and the ability to take in an unlimited number of asylum seekers. Others threw up their hands. They saw Syrian refugees as a source of crime and potential Islamist terrorist attacks. They feared that the refugees, who are largely Muslim, would not integrate well into German society.

Merkel now maintains that she does not regret her 2015 decision to open the country's borders to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, despite the political cost and tensions within her own party. "I said that phrase at the time for good reasons, and I stand by it. Nothing has changed about it to this day. However, I could not imagine that they would reproach me for it the way they did," Merkel admitted in statements to the newspaper Evangelische Zeitung. "I was convinced, and I remain convinced, that no one leaves their homeland lightly," maintains the former chancellor.

Ten years later, Merkel's decision remains controversial and has fueled the far right, which is stronger than ever in polls. When Merkel said "we will achieve this" at the end of August 2015, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, founded in 2013, had a 3% voting intention. At the time, it was an anti-euro populist party, but saw an electoral windfall in the migration issue and used it to gain votes. The AfD went from opposing the euro to an aggressive discourse against refugees, especially in the wake of the multiple sexual assaults against women in Cologne New Year's Eve 2016.

This year, the far right, which is growing across Europe, has also used Islamist attacks and knife attacks by immigrants and refugees to stir up fear among Germans and win votes. Currently, Alternative for Germany is the main opposition party and its popularity continues to rise. If elections were held in Germany this Sunday, the AfD would be the most popular party with 26 percent of the vote, followed by Merz's conservative CDU-CSU with 24 percent, according to the latest Forsa poll. The Social Democrats and the Greens would be tied with 13 percent, while the Left (The Links) would reach 11%.

Merz's criticism

In ten years, the number of refugees in Germany has increased from 750,000 in 2014 to 3.3 million by the end of 2024. The great migration wave of 2015 has been joined by more than a million Ukrainians who have found refuge in Germany2 from the invasion2,2.

For now, it is difficult to judge the success or failure of the integration of the 2015 refugees in Germany. Many Germans complain about the aid that immigrants receive or are concerned about the growing housing shortage and problems in schools, which some people blame on immigrants.

"If you look at it, we have achieved a lot with the Integration of male refugees into the labor market"The situation is not as good for refugee women, for whom integration into the workforce has been much more difficult," the chancellor acknowledged in the interview. "And although Islamist terrorism already existed in Germany before 2015, it is still depressing that the attacks are carried out precisely by asylum seekers, especially those who had been rejected," Merkel added, acknowledging that "the fact that people who do not have the right to reside in our country are returned to their country of origin remains a problem that has not been satisfactorily resolved."

Merkel left the chancellery by his own decision in December 2021 and passed the baton to Social Democrat Olaf Scholz. Since May, the conservative Friedrich Merz is the new tenant of the chancellery. Despite being from the same political party, Merkel and Merz have recently clashed over immigration. The former conservative chancellor criticized Merz's flirtation with the far right during the election campaign and his decision, once in office, to strengthen border controls to curb illegal immigration and reject some asylum applications.

The coalition of conservatives and social democrats led by Merz is aware that the issue of immigration is a matter of concern for Germans. 44% of Germans are "very concerned about migration and uncontrolled immigration," according to an Ipsos survey published in January. Two-thirds of respondents believe that asylum policy needs to be tightened, according to DeutschlandTrend, the opinion poll by public broadcaster ARD.

Merz, the CDU leader, has been harsh in her predecessor's assessment of immigration. "Today we know that, in the area she was referring to, it is clear that we have not achieved our goal," Merz concluded ten years after Merkel allowed more than one million refugees into Germany.