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.

GERMANY’S conservatives have won a historic election after beating out the far-right AfD party. Alternative for Germany (AfD) were heavily backed by international voices – including