Chancellor Merz’s bid to bolster his domestic image by appearing tough on President Trump appears to have gained him little traction, with the German leader enjoying rock-bottom approval domestically and the lowest approval of any major European leader.
The German government is now one year old, the coalition agreement was signed on April 5th 2025, and the first day of government commenced on the 6th. While the so-called ‘grand coalition’ between the legacy establishment left and right-wing parties never scored especially highly in the opinion polls, it has now plunged to new depths, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz deeply unpopular even by European standards.
German broadcaster NTV reports in its first-anniversary polling on the ruling coalition that just one-in-ten Germans say they are satisfied with the government’s performance, with a crushing 87 per cent unhappy. Damningly for the government, not even the supporters of its own constituent parties — the Social Democrats on the centre-left and the Christian Democrats on the centre-right — think it is doing a good job, with a majority in both camps dissatisfied.
There also seems to be little hope for the future, with just one-in-ten expecting Chancellor Merz to turn the situation around. The outlook is so poor that influential German tabloid Bild reports that cracks are beginning to appear in the government, with talks of an early dissolution and snap election on the horizon.
These sentiments are reflected in broader European polling, which finds that not only has Merz’s personal ratings plunged month-on-month throughout his whole leadership, but they are now the lowest in Europe. YouGov states that, according to their latest figures, Germany’s Merz has fallen far enough — to minus 52 in approval rating — to displace France’s President Emmanuel Macron, who is on minus 49.
Merz and Macron are clustered at the bottom of the European rankings, with Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer, at minus 44. The most popular leader of Europe’s major nations, by a considerable margin, is Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen, a social democrat who discovered that offering strict border control and deportations alongside centre-left social programmes is a winning electoral formula.
The latest rating plunge for Merz comes despite his recent attempt to square up to U.S. President Donald Trump over the Iran war, bidding to claim that Tehran had “humiliated” America. President Trump shot back, suggesting to the German that he should worry less about global affairs and place more focus on fixing his own “broken country” and warning the U.S. would withdraw troops from unreliable NATO allies.
Merz was eventually forced into a climb-down, affirming the U.S. “is and will remain Germany’s most important partner in the North Atlantic Alliance.”