Spooked by the far right’s success in reaching youth voters via TikTok, Germany’s political heavyweights are trying to muscle their way onto the social media platform ahead of June’s European elections.“TikTok gives me the chance to freely communicate our ideas… but also proven facts, and get them into the homes of our country,” Siegmund, who has been crowned the party’s “poster boy” on TikTok by German media, told AFP.Germany has nearly 20 million TikTok users, according to official statistics, with almost 60 percent of internet users aged between 12 and 19 regularly browsing the network.
Many of them will be able to vote in the EU elections in June, as the voting age has been lowered to 16 in Germany.
Habeck said he was joining TikTok because he wanted to meet young people “where they are”.
In France, Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old leader of the far-right National Rally, is already a star on the network — as is far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni with over a million followers.
Hungary’s far-right leader Viktor Orban, 60, has been on TikTok since July 2023, but has struggled to make an impact.
The challenge for newcomers to TikTok will be to find the right tone, preferably without simply copying the far right or leaving themselves open to ridicule.
“The cringe risk is high,” said Hillje, and Scholz’s first video — in which he pays tribute to his trusty briefcase — is hardly very promising.
German politicians are more used to addressing the over-50s, who make up more than half of the electorate.
But they must come to grips with TikTok, Hillje said — otherwise “the TikTok generation risks becoming the AfD generation”.
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