The rightward turn in the election in Germany is a major moment for Europe. The big winner is the center-right party — the Christian Democratic Union. Yet the CDU spurns the idea of forging a coalition with the number two vote-getter, the right-wing party known as Alternative for Germany. A coalition between the two could give the resulting government an absolute majority in the Bundestag. The CDU, though, is horrified at the prospect.

The moment reminds us of the hubbub that arose in 1981, when voters gave the French socialist, François Mitterrand, his long sought chance at the presidency of the Fifth Republic. Overhanging the drama was the question of whether to include the communists in the government. Mitterrand eventually decided to try to unify the left. He brought into a coalition four communist ministers. At the time we thought it was shocking.

Then again, it had a surprising result. As Mitterrand’s socialists confronted the Fifth Republic’s economic problems, Mitterrand moved rightward. Nothing too dramatic, but enough to horrify the noble comrades. Within three years, the communists quit the government. Not to put too fine a point on it, they weren’t heard from in any significant way since then, and the Communist party as it existed in France fell from any part of power.

Could such a thing happen in Germany? Meaning, which party would be at greater risk were the CDU to invite the AfD into a coalition as the junior partner? For one thing, our Michel Gurfinkiel cautions that “most Germans” would “feel uncomfortable with such an outcome.” That’s in part because of the AfD’s inability, or unwillingness, to purge extremist elements from its ranks — as has, say, Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia.

Plus, too, the CDU’s lack of interest in a partnership with the AfD could reflect the older party’s ambitions to win over its right-leaning voters. A “rejuvenated” CDU, Mr. Gurfinkiel reckons, could “be more interested in the AfD voters than in providing the younger rightist party an opportunity to grow even stronger as a junior partner in a conservative coalition.” Mitterrand’s outmaneuvering of the French communists offers the CDU an “alternative” lesson.

Mitterrand’s logic in 1981 was to placate the far left with cabinet posts “to dissuade the communist leadership and its trade union colleagues from undermining his government from the outside,” per the Washington Post. As a condition of joining the government, a Wall Street Journal editorial noted, the communists were “forced to publicly disavow their Moscow patrons, calling on them to withdraw from Afghanistan and stay out of Poland.”

The idea, the Journal conceded, was “to co-opt and tame France’s fractious Communists.” Yet in hoping that the Communists would “restrain their followers,” the Journal added, Mitterand and his followers were exposing themselves as “an elite political class eager to administer a stiff dose of utopian medicine to the masses.” Mitterrand began his presidency by nationalizing banks and key industries, while raising taxes on the wealthy.

Yet this lurch to the left wreaked havoc on the economy, and within two years Mitterrand was, to the communists’ dismay, touting his “tournant de la rigueur” — a turn to austerity. It was a testament to Mitterrand’s shrewdness as a political tactician that he strengthened the French left — and his socialist party — at the expense of the communists. Does Friedrich Merz have the capacity for that kind of strategic realpolitik?

So far, Herr Merz’s handling of the AfD does not inspire much confidence. When he attempted earlier this year to rely on votes from the AfD in a parliamentary vote on immigration, the idea of legitimizing the party sparked outrage. Elon Musk, in an inane comment, suggested that there was “too much of a focus on past guilt.” Vice President Vance was more on point when he scolded Germany for “running in fear” of its “own voters.” 

In any event, if Herr Merz is forced by the AfD taboo, as warranted as it may be, to form a coalition with the socialists, it would mark a missed opportunity for Germany, and for Europe, to tackle the migration crisis in a way that some 54 percent of German voters supported. Absent a commitment by the AfD to repudiate Germany’s Nazi past, for the CDU to collaborate with the rightists could prove a stretch too that only a Mitterrand could make.