Merkel's weakness at home exposes shaky French liaison

Paris

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel is caught in a tangle over refugees and euro area finance that resembles the plight of vessels stranded in the Sargasso Sea. Like a ship becalmed in the legendary seaweed-strewn stretch of the North Atlantic, Mrs Merkel is bereft of forward propulsion. Every manoeuvre results in countervailing forces that increase the sense of drift and isolation.

This is bad news for French President Emmanuel Macron. After years in the doldrums, Mr Macron has brought new élan into Franco-German relations with a pro-European spirit and economic restructuring at home to help lower the widening competitiveness gap between the two countries. However, Mrs Merkel's problems first in assembling and then holding together a workable coalition following September's inconclusive general election have undermined the French president almost as much as the German chancellor.