IS MERKEL SAFE?: That’s now a QTWTAIN, according to John O’Sullivan. He concludes:

Not only is Merkel seriously wounded today, therefore, but the sense that Germany is the solid reliable rock on which European unity can rest securely is shaken, too. As Cas Mudde pointed out yesterday in a superb analysis of the results in the Guardian, the election has reversed the impact of Macron’s presidential success. Where Macron’s victory was hailed (by, among others, Jean-Claude Junker) as the defeat of populism, the German results show that populism has now spread to regions thought immune to the virus. Though the populist parties in both countries are very far from winning office, they are still around and their rise is shaping (or reflecting) massive changes in political structures and party loyalties. And it’s not over.

Read the whole thing.