Auf Wiedersehen Angela!

Audio 48:30

Chancellor Angela Merkel, in Düsseldorf (Germany), August 18, 2020 © Martin Meissner / AP

By: Daniel Desesquelle

51 mins

After sixteen years at the head of Germany, Angela Merkel is preparing to step down from power.

She will not be a candidate in the September 2021 elections for a fifth term.

She will have equaled the longevity of Helmut Kohl but unlike the "Chancellor of Reunification", she will leave with an astonishing popularity rating.

Not very charismatic, hyper pragmatic, slow when it comes to making a decision, the Chancellor has established herself in Germany, in Europe, and on the international scene.

Publicity

His exercise of power was marked by his origins.

Angela Merkel is a Protestant from the East imbued with modesty and a rigorous morality that won the hearts of the Germans who baptized her "Mutti".

It was only in the last two years of her last mandate that she revealed herself to be a great European by derogating from the sacrosanct German dogma of a European loan providing a debt common to the 27.

Paradoxically, Angela Merkel leaves, leaving her party weakened.

If a woman succeeds Angela Merkel, she will not come from the CDU but from the Greens who are on the rise in the polls.

What trace will it leave in history?

That of a crisis manager for the benefit of the German economy?

That of a European belatedly convinced?

Or that of the famous “wir schaffen das”… will we get there?

When in 2015, it opened the doors to 1 million refugees.  

With: 

- Marion Van Renterghem, 

journalist.

Her latest book

"

It was Merkel

 ", editions des Arènes.

His Twitter account: here

.

“It was Merkel”, by Marion Van Renterghem.

© Editions Les Arènes

- Jens Althoff, 

 Director of the Paris Office of the

Heinrich Böll Foundation

. Online from

Berlin

.

More info: here

 - Pascal Thibaut, 

RFI

correspondent

 in Germany.

Online from Berlin.

His site: here

- Niklas Mönch,

journalism student

.

His Twitter account: here

With

Sasha Mitchell

of

Courrier International

.

© International Courier

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  • Germany

  • Angela Merkel

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