• It's strange in Germany at the moment; it feels as if there's been a lurch rightwards from media reporting, although I think most of that is a protest vote, just like 'Leave', because of decades of appallingly bad economic policy, especially towards the east of Germany, which has led to greatly increased inequality (by German standards). It's somewhat similar to the imbalance between South and North in this country. However, the current distribution of seats in the Bundestag is actually that the 'left' parties (SPD, Greens, and Die Linkspartei) have more seats than the conservative CDU. That there is a grand coalition is only the case because the SPD (and possibly the Greens, I don't know) have previously refused to form a coalition with the Left Party, thinking that it would be electoral poison if they did. Regardless of all that, as there is a grand coalition, it's not really right to mark Germany as 'right', even though Merkel is the federal chancellor.

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