Friedrich Merz, the conservative leader who seeks to recover the course of Germany and contain the progress of the ultra -right

Berlin – Friedrich Merz It is not very adept to rodeos. When the head of the German conservatives first jumped in parachute, it was in Corsica, with the foreign legion. A tandem jump to 4000 meters, with a minute of free fall on Calvi Bay. The exercise marked the beginning of a Week-end of hiking in the mountain with the legion in which his friend Tom Enders, the former president of Airbus, also participated.

“Friedrich knew at all the legion. To convince him, I sold him the discovery of the French Republican ideal, ”says Jean-Philippe Lambert, an ex-legalist, business lawyer in Mayer Brown.

Twenty years later is a jump of another magnitude that awaits Friedrich Merz. The one to settle in the chair of Germany, the first economy of the European Union (EU) and, for the moment, the «sick man» of the block. That expected Victoria Corona a absolutely inhabitual path. But not only because the 69 -year -old leader never exercised executive functions. He was no minister, nor mayor or president of Land.

Merz is the story of a double rematch. That of a student at the bottom of the class and that of Angela Merkel’s eternal rival. While the outgoing chancellor, the social democrat Olaf Scholz was excellent at school, Friedrich Merz had a Difficult schooling. The boy was known for his lack of respect for teachers, his bad notes and his heavy jokes.

Madame Bouillon, the French teacher, said the bitter experience. Full of energy, the class door opened one day without knowing that someone had loosen the hinges. Taken by the weight of the door, the poor woman made a masterful entrance, landing of a belly on the wooden blade as if it were a surf plate, while the class exploded laughing. In the school «History is still a legend,» says journalists Jutta Falke-Ischinger and Daniel Gofart in Friedrich Merz: Die Biographie.

Adept of card matches in class hours, Merz repeated and changed school. Fed, his father Joachim had even decided to be a mason. He only continued his studies thanks to his mother, who wanted to give him one last chance. He took advantage of it and changed the experience.

But Merz is also one of the most spectacular resurrections of German political life. Chosen in 1989 in the European Parliament and then in the Bundestag, the young man knew a rapid ascent before being marginalized by Merkel, who took his position in 2002, replacing him as head of the Democratus deputies (CDU). Disappointed, progressively abandoned political life to consecrate the private sector and make money.

During that period he was part of the Board of Directors of numerous companies such as Commerzbank, HSBC Deutschland, Stadler Rail or Axa, accumulating a experience of «Big Business”Uncommon in the German political class. In 2016, when he became president of the Blackrock German Council, Merz was considered as a “You have been«From politics. So much that, when he returned two years later, after the announcement of Merkel’s departure, he had to specify the spelling of his name at the first press conference.

Friedrich Merz is an «anti-merkel» both in style and ideas. The ex -chancellor knew how to control her cores and swallow her humiliations. This giant winsing 1.98 meters high can be impulsive And even hurtful.

«I need to have emotional contact with the people with whom I work,» he explained to one of his biographers. Merkel ruled in the center. The author of «Dare capitalism«He is a billionaire and positioned his party again on the right, reaffirming the idea of ​​a German» culture of reference «.

Fearsome speaker, did not hesitate to qualify Olaf Scholz as «plumber of power» in the Bundestag. But Sometimes you can skid. Merz offended many Germans accusing Ukrainian refugees of practicing «social tourism» or describing immigrants as «little pachás.»

At the end of last January, reacting to the attack of an Afghan that caused two dead, surprised the country voting next to the extreme right a motion in favor of the hardening of immigration policy. A rupture of the taboo of the so -called «sanitary cord», which put hundreds of thousands of people on the street to protest.

Merz is also the face of a certain Germany. That of the small cities, with elegant houses and hundredth traditions. The leader of the German conservatives (CDU/CSU) is married, has three children and comes from Sauerland, a region of small wooded mountains, located between Kassel, Colonia and Dortmund, in North-Westfalia Rhine.

“Here nobody expects others to help us. One rares and does. The Sauerlandes are pragmatic. We have our feet on the ground and we know that everything that is distributed through social benefits must have been mandatory by someone, ”says Matthias Kerkhoff, CDU deputy of the region.

Merz spent his youth in Brilon, a small city of 26,000 inhabitants, where he returns every 15 days to visit his parents. Family history is confused with that of the country. Call under flag at age 17, his father Joachim – who today has 101 – made the war and spent four and a half years in a Soviet field, before returning. Friedrich descends from a family of French Protestants for their mother, the Sauvigny. His maternal grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, was for a long time mayor of Brilon and a member of the Catholic party, before joining Nazism in 1933.

Merz never really left the region and today is a deputy of the constituency. At the end of January it was there that he decided to host Markus Soder, the leader of the CSU, Bavaria’s brother party. In the big party room, that day he pronounced a speech he liked:

“There is no prosperity without efforts. There is no future for Germany with prejubilation, the four -working week and a balance between professional and private life. That is done by those who can afford it, ”he said.

For Merz, the Economy will be the great challenge. But it will not be the only one. First you will have to get a coalition to be appointed chancellor for Parliament. Then rebuild the «Business Model«From Germany. Fragilized by the end of Russian cheap gas and China’s competition, the country is going through a Structural crisisapproaching the three million unemployed And I could live in 2025 Third year of recession.

The third challenge will be Geestratic. Merz must provide the country with credible defense capabilities, at a time when the United States announces the withdrawal of its European troops.

Created after the start of the Ukraine War, the Special Fund of 100,000 million euros of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) is running out. In 2028 a hole of between 30,000 and 40,000 million euros for Invest the 2% equivalent of GDP in defense.

On the other hand, Merz will have to be able to Relauncar the Franco-German coupletrue European construction engine, especially in the current circumstances, when the block needs to decide its immediate destination without Washington’s protective umbrella. Atlantist and European convinced, Merz enrolls in the tradition of Helmut Khol and intends to return to his country the privilege post he always had in Brussels.

The fourth challenge is political. As planned, the extreme right has just doubled its number of votes in these legislative. Obsessed with the next 2029 electoral appointment, Merz knows that he is only four years old to prevent neo -Nazis from getting to power.