Listening to it, one has the sweet impression of being back in the “Republic of Bonn”. Old-fashioned navy blue suit, well-ironed fabric handkerchief in his pocket, always courteous, Friedrich Merz is one of the last specimens of the Kohl era, a time when politics was done on the banks of the Rhine in a bourgeois atmosphere, cozy and very provincial, of the old capital.
At 69, the president of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is a “man from the past”, as the German press keeps writing, still stuck in a vision of society in the 1990s. After the withdrawal of his two main rivals in the race for the chancellorship, in mid-September, he now has free rein to take power in Berlin during the early elections of February 23, 2025 caused by the premature end of the Scholz government. “This time he has a good chance of becoming chancellor,” said Ursula Münch, director of the Tutzing Academy of Political Sciences.
Burying the Merkel era
Ejected from the presidency of the parliamentary group by Angela Merkel in 2002, this returnee in politics had disappeared from the screens for almost two decades, managing private fortunes in international firms, which earned him the nickname “financial shark” . Throughout this crossing of the desert, he never gave up the idea of taking revenge for the “stab in the back” of the former chancellor, from which he still seems to bear scars today. “While she has left the political scene, we have the impression that he still has scores to settle with her,” confides a close observer.
Burying the Merkel era is also his objective. Merz wants to turn this traumatic page of the “social democratization of the CDU” to restore a strong German conservatism to his party. For him, the former chancellor’s “welcome policy” was an accident in the history of the CDU. He must “never repeat himself again”.
The way back was not a cakewalk. Faced with the “Merkel gang”, Merz first suffered two painful defeats: the presidency of the CDU, won by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, then the candidacy for the 2019 elections, attributed to Armin Laschet.
In 2022, when he was finally elected president of the CDU, he had tears in his eyes. “It was a long walk to get there. We can recognize his incredible perseverance. It’s a great quality for a political leader,” judges Ursula Münch. In fact, Merz managed to stabilize the party by putting an end to internal quarrels. He now wants to recover voters who switched to the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland). To do this, he promises to make a clean sweep of everything that Chancellor Scholz has reformed over the past three years: the legalization of cannabis, the reform of the nationality code, the phase-out of nuclear power and, above all, migration policy. Merz offers his voters a “return to the roots”. “The conservatives have always defended a very restrictive immigration policy. In the 1990s, they called for the abolition of the right to asylum. The CDU before Merkel was on the current line of the extreme right, recalls Ursula Münch. The question is to what extent they want to backtrack on these positions.” Polls give around 34% to the CDU compared to 24% in the last legislative elections, three years ago.
From the height of almost 2 meters, Friedrich Merz dominates his interlocutors. Like Charles de Gaulle or Konrad Adenauer, two men he regularly quotes, he likes to walk slowly through the crowd, shaking his hands profusely, like in the good old days of the Bonn Republic.
European fiber
A child of the post-war period, born in 1955 in Sauerland (southeast of North Rhine-Westphalia), he was raised with a European spirit. “I was immersed in politics in Brussels and Strasbourg,” the former MEP (1989 to 1994) regularly recalls. “Merz is part of this generation who thinks that France should be the subject of special attention from Germany. He is one of the last representatives of Adenauer’s legacy”, remarks Frank Baasner , co-director of the Forum for the Franco-German Future.
As such, it represents a glimmer of hope for the relaunch of Franco-German relations, at a standstill since the election of Emmanuel Macron. “Despite all of France’s efforts, Germany has remained deaf to its proposals. We hope that Friedrich Merz will change course, continues Frank Baasner. But whatever happens, the deep differences between Germany and France on the issues of energy, geopolitics, migration policy and the common European debt will remain.” Without going that far, Merz announced in recent days that he was ready to reform the very restrictive “debt brake” mechanism, which would make it possible to make investments in the country.
In the meantime, it is on the question of the distribution of refugees in Europe that Franco-German friendship should be put to the test. The Solingen knife attack – three dead, at the end of August – perpetrated by a 26-year-old Syrian refugee marked a turning point in Germany’s migration policy, with the return of controls at the country’s borders. After demanding the systematic refoulement of asylum seekers (refused by Scholz), Friedrich Merz promised to be intractable with his European neighbors if he is elected chancellor, including with France. “I have always advocated for open borders in Europe. Like Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl, I believe that Europe is the most precious thing Germans have. But this only works if EU borders are protected and if our neighbors respect the common rules […] If they do not want it, I believe that we have the duty and the right to push them back to our borders,” he asserts in political meetings. And adds: “We decide who enters our country. It’s still normal for a country that still has a little self-esteem.”
Unlike Eric Ciotti, Friedrich Merz does not intend to turn to the far right to achieve his goals. The sanitary cordon will remain sacred until the end. “I wouldn’t have imagined Ciotti could do that [rejoindre le RN]”, he confided to L’Express, just after the LR president’s rallying to the far right for the legislative elections. “He will never take the risk of an alliance with the AfD. He will never put Europe back into play”, assures Ursula Münch. He also repeated it during the general policy debate on November 13 after the fall of the Scholz government: “There will never be an alliance with you, neither today, nor tomorrow and whatever the number of your deputies in the Hemicycle”, he made it clear to the AfD deputies. Which did not prevent him, last September , during regional elections of Brandenburg, to campaign on the same themes “They. [migrants syriens et afghans] are disrespectful towards women, especially young people. This is the reality in Germany,” he declared on September 21 in Potsdam, the day before this election, which saw the AfD reach 30% of the vote, almost three times more than the CDU (12%).
Friedrich Merz believes this strategy will allow him to win back lost conservative voters from the Merkel era. “What other choice does he have to pull the rug out from under the far right?” asks Ursula Münch. So far, however, the method has not proven itself. When he took over as head of the CDU, he promised to “halve” far-right voters. There are now twice as many of them.
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