Angela Merkel: Right-wing electoral victories are 'remarkable and regrettable'

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, denounced this weekend's right-wing victories in France and elsewhere. Merkel said the best response is to focus on creating jobs and improving economic conditions.

|
Michael Sohn/AP
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, chairwoman of the German Christian Democrats (CDU), looks on at the beginning of the party's weekly executive committee meeting in Berlin, Germany, Monday, May 26, 2014, the day after the elections for the European Parliament.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the rise of right-wing populists in the weekend's European elections is "remarkable and regrettable." She says the best answer is to focus on policies that create jobs and improve competitiveness.

In one of the most prominent upsets, the far-right National Front topped polling in neighboring France. Merkel said in Berlin on Monday that it's important to win back voters – and "that goes for France, too."

She added, "A course directed toward competitiveness, growth, and jobs is the best response to those who are disappointed and have now voted the way we all didn't want."

Merkel's conservatives were the strongest force in Germany but Alternative for Germany, a year-old party that calls for southern European countries to leave the euro-zone, took 7 percent of the vote.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Angela Merkel: Right-wing electoral victories are 'remarkable and regrettable'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0526/Angela-Merkel-Right-wing-electoral-victories-are-remarkable-and-regrettable
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe