Who is Friedrich Merz? German front runner flirted on the far right

He previously risked alienating more moderate parts of voters and voted for a bill in the 1990s that included the criminalization of married couple rape.

He later explained that he already considers the couple’s rape a crime, and that it was another issue in the bill he opposed.

Polls suggest that he is not particularly popular among young people and women, but Klaus Peter Wilsch believes his paintings are unfair in the German media.

“I had him in my constituency several times,” he told me. “Then the woman comes out and says he’s a nice guy.”

Charlotte Meltz came to his defense as well, telling the Westpheren Post that “it’s simply not true that I’m writing about my husband’s image of a woman.”

She says their marriage is one of mutual support. “We took care of each other’s work and divided parenting into something compatible with our professional duties.”

His popularity is tested as the election approaches, and as speculation focuses more on whether they win and who they may form a coalition.

Some observers fear that trust between potential coalition partners is undermined by Mertz’s experimental approach to implicit cooperation with AFD.

Whatever the criticism, one EU diplomat told me that Brussels “waits worried about his arrival.”

“It’s time to move on from this German deadlock and run that motor.”