Bodo Ramelow should drop his phone a bit.
-
Jens Schlueter / AFP
A German regional leader is under fire after telling about Clubhouse, a trendy new app for participating in audio chats, which he played on his phone during pandemic negotiations and laughing at him. Angela Merkel.
Bodo Ramelow, Minister-President of Thuringia (east), had not measured the popularity of Clubhouse, a new application which makes it possible to participate, by invitation, in audio chats and to build real virtual conference centers.
"Little Merkel"
Invited this weekend for an exchange with journalists, this regional leader, the only one from the radical left Die Linke, indulged in confidences, without imagining that extracts of his speech would be found in the press.
Bodo Ramelow thus entrusted playing the game Candy Crush during the long and regular sessions of videoconference negotiations between the Chancellor and the 16 States-regions on the anti-Covid restrictions.
During these negotiations, which can last for several hours, "some play Sudoku, others chess or Scrabble on their phones, and I play Candy Crush," said Bodo Ramelow.
In this discussion on Clubhouse, Bodo Ramelow also evokes lightly the Chancellor, baptized "little Merkel" ("Merkelchen").
He has since apologized to Angela Merkel.
“To belittle the name of the Chancellor was an act of male ignorance,” he admitted.
These confidences, which Bodo Ramelow thought reserved for a small circle, placed the regional leader at the center of criticism.
Behavior that goes wrong
The case falls badly for Bodo Ramelow, who was head-on in October against Angela Merkel and his desire to impose tougher restrictions.
Bodo Ramelow and other regional leaders finally won their case, weeks before Germany found itself overwhelmed by the second wave of the epidemic.
Bodo Ramelow has since expressed regret and admitted that the Chancellor was "right" to campaign for harsher measures.
Imagining him playing Candy Crush during these discussions becomes all the more difficult.
“If it turns out that Bodo Ramelow is playing cell phone games during the conference, then he should review his behavior,” said Thuringian Interior Minister, Social Democrat Georg Maier.
“Either it is an expression of the arrogance of power, or of fatigue,” criticized the leader of the Christian Democrats in Thuringia, Christian Hirte.
The vice-president of the liberal FDP party, Michael Theurer, called on politicians to have more "self-control" on social networks.
Politics
François Ruffin accuses Christophe Castaner of playing Candy Crush at the National Assembly
Did you see ?
Conservative MP plays Candy Crush amid pension hearing
Germany
World
Mobile app
Phone
Angela Merkel
Candy Crush