The German government is turning into the French national football team. Not literally – the EXBERLINER cannot exclusively reveal that Angela Merkel has decided to take up French citizenship and is marshalling her cabinet into a defensive 4-5-1 formation.
But the very day after the French retreated from the World Cup as a disarrayed rabble – and were made to fly home in economy class (“Ha! You will now be deprived of ze ‘ot towels! Zat will show you. Zut alors!”) – a new survey revealed that the two parties currently forming the German government have not been this unpopular for ten years, when the FDP interior policy spokesman was caught stealing from a church mouse and, during a party conference, the CDU made fun of a baby deer.
Since last September’s election, the governing parties have lost 13 points in the ratings, though the opposition parties have somehow managed only to gain a couple of points each. Political apathy among the people has apparently now gone so far that there are actually fewer percent than there used to be.
The survey also finds that Merkel’s previously bad-news-proof personal rating is tanking, and should she resign, they would please like to have the following people as Chancellor, in this order: Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, Ursula von der Leyen, Wolfgang Schäuble, Stefan Raab, or Otto Rehhagel, the Greek manager, who is refusing to discuss his future.
This might be more likely than you think – not the Otto bit – next week, parliamentarians will elect a new president for the country, and if Christian Wulff, Merkel’s candidate, doesn’t get it, then her position is said to be precarious. Larks!