The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the most popular party in the country, according to a striking new poll published Tuesday.

If a national election were now held, 26 percent of Germans would vote for the AfD, according to a poll carried out by the Forsa Institute for Social Research and Statistical Analysis. That result puts the far-right party ahead of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s mainstream conservative bloc, which slid to second with 24 percent support in the poll.

With the far-right National Rally already leading clearly in France, the bombshell German survey is likely to fuel unease among mainstream leaders across Europe. Right-wing populist parties have performed strongly in elections in recent years from Poland to Romania, and Portugal to the Netherlands.

In Britain, Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK is also topping polls amid broad public dissatisfaction with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government.

While POLITICO’s Poll of Polls shows that Germany’s conservative Christian Democrats maintain a slight lead over the AfD in an aggregation of voter surveys, the far-right party has climbed since snagging almost 21 percent of the vote in February’s federal election, its best-ever result. The AfD is now the largest opposition party in Germany’s Bundestag.

The AfD was initially founded as a single-issue party more than a decade ago by a group of economics professors who, in the midst of Europe’s debt crisis, opposed the euro and financial help for debt-ridden countries. It regularly scored single-digit results in federal and state elections in its early years.

Now led by the openly radical Alice Weidel, a former economist, the AfD currently pushes a hard-line anti-migrant and right-wing populist positions. Some mainstream politicians argue the party is so extreme that it ought to be banned under provisions of the German constitution designed to prevent a repeat of the country’s Nazi past.

Forsa’s poll also indicated that, as Merz focuses on foreign policy issues like the war in Ukraine and Europe’s relationship with the U.S. under President Donald Trump, he’s in growing political trouble at home. A majority of Germans are dissatisfied with Merz’s chancellorship, with 67 percent saying they are “not happy” with his performance after 100 days in office, according to the survey.

The next German federal election will be held in 2029.