Merz Heads to Paris, Warsaw After Bumpy Start as Chancellor

Friedrich Merz is traveling to Paris and Warsaw on Wednesday on his first foreign trip as German chancellor, still reeling from a humiliating setback in Tuesday’s government transition that raised early questions about his leadership.

The 69-year-old conservative, who heads the nation’s new ruling coalition of his CDU/CSU bloc and the Social Democrats, failed on the first attempt to secure enough backing from the parties’ own lawmakers to take office — the first time since World War II that an incoming chancellor had suffered such a defeat.