Suggesting that the Chancellor is an endangered creature, a float in Mainz had her in the shape of a turtle performing her famous Rote with a leaf in her mouth. Accompanying her is the script “the last of her kind.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was the centre of attention in Cologne, where the man nicknamed “little rocket man” by Donald Trump could be seen doing a dance with a nuclear warhead.

Mr Trump also had several floats dedicated to him at the three main parades in Mainz, Cologne and Düsseldorf. In Düsseldorf he was pictured being screwed by a bear which was called “the Russia affair”.

The soon-to-be former leader of the Social Democrats, Martin Schulz, was depicted in the capital of NRW mincing himself with the words “selber Schulz” (a play on the phrase selber Schuld, meaning one's own fault). Schulz took over the party chairmanship a year ago but lost the election and then was forced to give up his goal of becoming Foreign Minister after a series of U-turns.

Theresa May also came in for a ribbing in a quite gruesome float in Düsseldorf. The British prime Minister has just given birth to a three-eyed monster called Brexit in the papier mache sculpture.