As Annalena Baerbock takes the stage, the downpour which, a few minutes before, had soaked the people gathered on Theater Platz in Chemnitz, ceases. The Green candidate is quick to take the opportunity to stress that anything is still possible. “A few minutes ago it was raining, now the sun is out – it can happen,” she said with a big smile, hinting that the change of weather bodes well for her party’s fortunes.

There are both laughs and taunts from those gathered. One week away from one of the most open and tense German elections in years, Baerbock is in the final stages of a campaign that saw her a few weeks ago move to the top post, as Chancellor Angela Merkel’s successor, but in which she is now fighting for second or third place.

With Germany on the brink of its biggest political change since 2005, the drama of the campaign’s final days is drawing crowds. And everyone puts the twist on the weather that suits them. For Brigitte Jung, a retired kitchen helper who has been unemployed since her dismissal from the Chemnitzer Hof hotel in the same square a little over 20 years ago, the rain is “a sign on her part that it and his are not wanted “.

The 73-year-old, sheltered under a lilac umbrella, insists that the environmental party would be a disaster for Chemnitz, the Land of Saxony and for Germany. “They will increase the price of oil, cover the country with wind farms and ban meat,” she warns.

And referring to two modes of transport that the Greens have promoted to reduce CO2 emissions, she adds: “I’m too old to ride a cargo bike and too poor to own an electric car.

She is also not enthusiastic about the other main candidates for the chancellery. Armin Laschet for the Christian Democrats “is nothing but a scary clown,” she says, recalling how he was caught laughing in front of a camera in tribute to those who died in the recent floods in Germany. Olaf Scholz for the Social Democrats, who leads the polls, she finds “colorless but probably the best of a bad group”.

Last time around, she voted for the far-right AfD – along with a quarter of the Chemnitzers – but she says they “will never go to government, so what’s the point of giving them my vote?” Despite her disillusionment, she can’t wait to “see the circus”, as she puts it, on view Friday morning in this college town, known as Karl Marx Stadt in communist times, which has a strong industrial heritage. worker.

Among the crowd, a group of anti-vaccine protesters and pandemic skeptics try to interrupt the event by shouting “you will not impose the vaccine poison on us” and hissing.

Overlooking the square, beefy men dressed in black, identifying themselves as members of the far-right scene, brandish banners and mock under the gaze of a contingent of several dozen police officers. Memories of 2018 still shape the local psyche: Immigration tensions in Germany turned into street riots here, led by right-wing extremists, after the death of a local man for which two refugees were blamed .

On one of her rare election tour dates in the former East Communist, Baerbock, clad in a black trench coat, strives to acknowledge the struggles of those who participated in the peaceful revolution to overthrow the East regime. -German in 1989. And she says similar efforts are needed now to meet “the enormous challenge of our time”, namely the climate emergency. She predicts that Europe’s largest economy has the potential for innovation and creativity to become a pioneer in climate-neutral technology, which she says will “create well-paying jobs” even if it closes coal mines. local.

In Saxony, the Greens will be lucky if they clinch fifth place ahead of the far left Die Linke. But they are expected to get 10% – almost double their vote in 2017, which party policymakers say makes Baerbock’s presence in Chemnitz interesting, not just for this election, but for those to come.

Another reason is the AfD, which, although it is likely to lose votes this time around, still heaps down the necks of all established parties in Saxony, as elsewhere in the region, especially since entering the Bundestag in as the main opposition party four years ago. .

The AfD dismisses what it sees as the hysteria surrounding climate change, which it says, like the coronavirus, is little more than an artificial construct used to impose controls on the population like those deployed by the Communist regime.

“Climate change is nothing new,” says Tino Chrupalla, whose election to the Bundestag for the AfD in the Saxon town of Görlitz has propelled him to the top ranks of the party in Berlin. “It doesn’t make sense to fight global warming – we just have to adapt to it.” The CO2 emissions tax is nothing more than a “modern form of selling indulgences”, he insists, while warning that the Germans are being cheated by “the prices of electricity the highest in the world “as it attempts to switch to renewables. . Instead of wind and solar power, the party is determined to resuscitate nuclear power plants.

Friday evening, a little over 260 km north of Potsdam, a more chic part of the former communist, the young people gathered on the Bassinplatz to ask questions of Olaf Scholz of the SPD, who has been on the rise since weeks after having passed the CDU Laschet. in the polls.

Alexa Bouwer, 22, a history student drinking beer with friends, says she has already decided who she will vote for but has come to soak up the atmosphere.

“I only knew Angela Merkel,” she said, pointing out that she was six when the outgoing German Chancellor came to power. “This election is one of the most crucial in years, not only for Germany but also for Europe. This is our future and we are delighted to have the chance to shape a new political landscape.

For the two-hour debate, Scholz is casually dressed in a sweater and – exceptionally – is called Olaf, and mentioned in the personal form “of”. He promises that as chancellor he will tackle everything from increasing wages and working conditions for social workers to ensuring that farmers are not charged for their land by renewable energy plants. .

He will also “get to work immediately” to ensure that Germany becomes greenhouse gas neutral by 2045, but insists that “the enormity of the task involved in the effective dismantling of d ‘an industrial system that has been around for over 200 years is something most people don’t understand. .

The atmosphere is warm and friendly, the seriousness of the subjects is somewhat lightened by jokes and beer. But then a group calling themselves “the last generation” comes along. Members have been on hunger strike for 20 days, and today they bring a banner and demand for a live televised debate on the climate emergency with Scholz and the other leading candidates ahead of election day.

Concern grows for the health of the strikers, who are camping in front of the Reichstag in Berlin, and in a low voice on the sidelines, Scholz urges them to “stop this act of self-destruction”, saying he is ready to speak to them. but only when they break their strike.

“I’m so disappointed,” says Jacob Heinze, one of the hunger strikers, thin and wrapped in a scarf as he watches Scholz walk away and the audience disperse. “I have no hope for this election because none of the parties that stand a chance of winning have a platform that could avert the coming crisis, and none of them are ready to have an honest conversation about it. topic.”