N AfD election poster in Berlin says "Stop Islamisation" The nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) has grown rapidly since it was formed in 2013 and is now the biggest opposition party in the Bundestag (national parliament), with 89 seats.
Founded in 2013 as an anti-euro party, it has shifted its focus to immigration and Islam and is increasingly seen as far-right in tone.
line Is it far-right?
Yes. It may not have started out as a far-right party but it soon embraced far-right policies and many of its leaders have espoused far-right rhetoric.
AfD co-chairman Alexander Alexander Gauland has talked of fighting an "invasion of foreigners" and the party openly focuses on Islam and migration, seeing Islam as alien to German society. Some of the party's rhetoric has been tinged with Nazi overtones.
The AfD sits in the same political family as France's far-right National Front and Austria's far-right Freedom Party - as well as the populist, anti-Islam Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) of Geert Wilders. Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK's anti-EU party Ukip, took part in their 2017 election campaign.
