Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz looks concerned about the French election, where the far-right may take power in parliament.
I hope, so to speak, that the parties that do not belong to Marine Le Pen achieve successes, says Scholz in a long interview with TV channel ARD, and adds:
But it is up to the French people to decide.
Opinion polls ahead of the election show that President Emmanuel Macron's party is lagging far behind the far-right party National Rally (RN), previously led by Marine Le Pen.
Also on home turf, Scholz is worried about the far-right. The far-right extremist AfD became the second-largest party in the German EU election earlier in June. In the three federal states in eastern Germany – Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg – which are holding local elections in September, AfD became the largest.
Scholz says he assumes the party will not get the post of minister-president in any of the federal states.
That would be depressing, he says.
By the next federal election, in October next year, he feels confident that other parties will become larger than AfD even in eastern Germany. However, hardly Scholz's Social Democratic SPD, which attracts few voters in the east.
According to Scholz, it is largely due to the government's strong support for Ukraine, which is not entirely popular in the eastern parts of the country.
It is reflected in public opinion, says Scholz, while stressing that the government will not change its stance on these issues.
