Angela Merkel's social democrats and conservatives are neck and neck in the German general elections, according to the results of exit polls broadcast on Sunday by public television channels.
The conservative CDU-CSU union, led by Amin Laschet, would obtain 25%, like the Social Democrats, according to an exit survey for the public channel ARD.
The SPD is slightly ahead, with 26%, the CDU-CSU, at 24%, according to another poll for the ZDF channel.
A large part of voters having voted by mail, this first trend could however be corrected over the evening after the first counts.
To discover
Presidential 2022: where are the candidates in the polls?
Read also German elections: Armin Laschet, Merkel's dolphin trapped by his hesitations
Historical setback
These first polls were greeted with an explosion of joy at the SPD headquarters in Berlin.
"
It is clear that the SPD
" won, welcomed the secretary general of the party, Lars Klingbeil, calling for the formation of the future government.
Yet this is an unprecedented setback for the Christian Democrats since 1949, with at least eight points less than in 2017, already a historically low level for the conservatives.
For the first time in 72 years, in an increasingly fragmented Germany, the conservative union has fallen below 30%.
This setback casts a shadow over the end of Merkel's reign, whose popularity remains at its zenith after four terms but who has proved unable to prepare for her succession.
The Greens and their candidate Annalena Baerbock, a favorite time of the ballot, miss the boat with, according to these polls, between 14 and 15%.
Little reason for satisfaction: they beat their record of 2009, when they obtained 10.7% of the vote, and progress by six points compared to 2017. The liberals of the FDP, fourth with around 12%, appear as the "
makers of king
”essential for building a future coalition.
The far right of the AfD, whose entry into the Bundestag was the main highlight of the previous election in 2017, confirms its roots in the German political landscape.
But with between 10 and 11%, this Islamophobic party undermined by internal conflicts, is down slightly compared to four years ago (12.6%).
If the trend is confirmed, Olaf Scholz, austere vice-chancellor and finance minister of the outgoing government, thus has chances of succeeding Angela Merkel, chancellor for 16 years, and of initiating the "
change
" promised at the end of the campaign.