Germany's Lindner retires as Free Democrats see collapse in support
Former German finance minister Christian Lindner has announced his retirement from politics after his Free Democratic Party (FDP) appeared to fail to reach the 5% threshold needed to enter the German parliament in Sunday's national election.
"I am now retiring from active politics," Lindner wrote on X late on Sunday as his party dropped to around 4.6% in the latest projections.
Lindner had earlier pledged to quit politics if the free-market party did not pass the 5% hurdle.
The move marks a remarkable downfall for Lindner, who had led the FDP back to political relevance and entered a three-party coalition government in 2021 with Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats and the Greens.
However, the uncomfortable marriage was marred by massive differences over budgetary policy, with Scholz eventually firing Lindner as finance minister in November.
That prompted the FDP to withdraw from the coalition, amid allegations that the party had pre-empted the split on purpose, and led to elections being brought forward from September to February.
Lindner sought to position himself as an ideal coalition partner for the centre-right CDU/CSU bloc led by Friedrich Merz, the comfortable winner of Sunday's election.
The FDP's collapse in support will instead leave the party - and its leader - heading into the political wilderness.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The spectacular end of Elon Musk and Donald Trump's bromance
During a press conference in the Oval Office last week, President Trump praised Elon Musk, his adviser and the outgoing head of the president's Department of Government Efficiency, for waging war on the federal workforce. 'Elon has worked tirelessly to lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations,' Trump said alongside Musk, who wore a black DOGE hat and 'DOGEfather' T-shirt while standing next to the president. For nearly an hour, Trump heaped effusive praise on the billionaire Tesla chief executive, SpaceX founder and owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, whose stint as a special government employee had come to an end. 'Elon's really not leaving,' the president added. 'He's gonna be back and forth I think.' What a difference a week makes. Trump and Musk's unlikely bromance unraveled in spectacular fashion on Thursday, with the president telling reporters in the Oval Office that he was 'very disappointed' with Musk's criticism of his 'one big beautiful' spending bill, and Musk railing at Trump in real time on X. "I'm very disappointed in Elon," Trump said before a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. "I've helped Elon a lot." The president suggested that Musk, like many others before him, had become 'hostile' upon leaving his administration. "I'll be honest, I think he misses the place," Trump said. 'People leave my administration, and they love us, and then at some point they miss it so badly, and some of them embrace it, and some of them actually become hostile." "They leave, and they wake up in the morning, and the glamour is gone," the president added. "The whole world is different, and they become hostile. I don't know what it is." Trump also suggested that Musk was upset that the Republican-backed reconciliation bill did not include an electric vehicle mandate, which would have benefited EV manufacturers, including Tesla. 'He knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem and he only developed the problem when he found out we were going to cut the EV mandate." "False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!" Musk wrote on X. 'Whatever,' Musk continued. 'Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.' 'In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that [is] both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this!' Musk added. 'Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way.' Musk, who was one of Trump's most fervent and visible supporters during the 2024 campaign, wasn't done. "Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate," Musk wrote. "Such ingratitude." Trump wasn't done either. 'Elon was 'wearing thin,'' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!" 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,' Trump added. 'I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!' Musk tried to get the last word in, suggesting Trump's name is in unreleased FBI files on Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender. "Time to drop the really big bomb," Musk wrote. "@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!" "Mark this post for the future," Musk added moments later. "The truth will come out." On Thursday night, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that 'this is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' because it does not include the policies he wanted." She added "The president is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again.' The split capped a longtime partnership for the pair, with Musk stumping for Trump on the campaign trail, and the president, after installing Musk as the head of DOGE, boosting Tesla amid criticism of Musk with an unusual event at the White House. ("Trump turns the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom," NBC News proclaimed.) But in the last few months, there had been reports that Trump was privately growing tired of Musk. On May 27, three days before Musk's farewell press conference in the Oval Office, CBS aired a clip that showed him expressing disappointment that Trump's signature spending bill would undermine his DOGE work. Then on Tuesday, Musk went full blast on the spending package. "I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore," he wrote on X. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it." "Call your Senator, Call your Congressman," Musk wrote on Wednesday. "Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL." That brought us to Thursday, when Trump was asked about Musk's attacks during his Oval Office meeting with Merz. "Elon and I had a great relationship," Trump told reporters. "I don't know if we will anymore." In a phone interview with CNN on Friday morning, Trump said he was "not even thinking about" Musk and would not be speaking with him anytime soon. 'I'm not even thinking about Elon. He's got a problem. The poor guy's got a problem,' Trump said, adding: "I won't be speaking to him for a while I guess, but I wish him well.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump quietly pressuring Senate to weaken Russia sanctions, WSJ reports
The White House is urging Republican Senator Lindsey Graham to soften his sanctions bill against Russia, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on June 6, citing congressional staffers. The bipartisan sanctions bill, introduced on April 1 by Graham and Senate Democrat Richard Blumenthal, seeks to impose a 500% tariff on imports from countries that continue purchasing Russian oil and raw materials. In recent weeks, Trump administration officials have contacted Graham's office with requests to water down the legislation, congressional aides told the WSJ. The White House reportedly asked Graham to insert waivers into the bill allowing Trump to choose which entities get sanctioned and changing the word "shall" to "may." Removing the mandatory language from the text would essentially defang the bill, staffers said. Blumenthal confirmed that negotiations with Trump officials were taking place behind the scene but did not comment on the substance of the talks. "We're moving ahead and the White House is included in our conversations," he told the WSJ. Read also: 'Find and destroy' – how Ukraine's own Peaky Blinders mastered the art of bomber drones Earlier, Republican Senator Roger Wicker on June 4 said that Trump had asked the Senate to postpone voting on the bill, which had been scheduled to come to the floor this week. In a joint press conference alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on June 5, Trump said lawmakers were waiting for his approval before advancing the sanctions bill. "They'll be guided by me. That's how it's supposed to be," Trump said. "They're waiting for me to decide on what to do." In the same briefing, Trump said that he had a deadline in mind for when he would enforce new sanctions on Russia but did not give specifics, saying only that sanctions would be imposed when it became clear that peace talks were not moving forward. He also said that sanctions could apply to both Russia and Ukraine. "It takes two to tango," he said. During the June 5 press conference, Trump compared Ukraine and Russia — which launched an unprovoked full-scale invasion against Ukraine in February 2022 and partially occupies four Ukrainian regions in addition to the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula — to children fighting on a playground. "Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart," he said. Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose sanctions on Russia if he does not see progress in peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow. He has never followed through on any of these threats. Read also: UPDATE: Russia hits Ukraine with large-scale attack days after Operation Spiderweb We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
French rabbi tells of two attacks in one week as hate crimes rise
PARIS (Reuters) -A French rabbi was attacked on Friday for the second time in a week, he told Reuters, reflecting a broad rise in hate crimes across France that has included high-profile anti-Semitic assaults. Elie Lemmel said he was sitting at a cafe in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine on Friday when he was hit in the head by a chair. "I found myself on the ground, I immediately felt blood flowing," he said. He was stunned and unsure what exactly had happened, he said, initially thinking something must have fallen from a window or roof, before it occurred to him he had been attacked. "Unfortunately, given my beard and my kippah, I suspected that was probably why, and it's such a shame," he said. Friday's incident follows another in the town of Deauville in Normandy last week, when Lemmel said he was punched in the stomach by an unknown assailant. Lemmel said he was used to "not-so-friendly looks, some unpleasant words, people passing by, spitting on the ground," but had never been physically assaulted before the two attacks. The prosecutor's office in Nanterre said it had opened an investigation into the Neuilly attack for violence aggravated by the fact that it was committed on religious grounds. A man being held for questioning at the Neuilly-sur-Seine police station underwent a psychiatric examination that required his hospitalization, it said. According to German-language identity documents found in his possession, the 28-year-old man was born in the West Bank city of Rafah. "This act sickens us," former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal wrote on X regarding Friday's incident involving Lemmel. "Antisemitism, like all forms of hatred, is a deadly poison for our society." Last week, five Jewish institutions were sprayed with green paint in Paris. "Attacking a person because of their faith is a shame. The increase in anti-religious acts requires the mobilization of everyone," Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on X. France has seen a rise in hate crimes. Last year, police recorded an 11% rise in racist, xenophobic or antireligious crimes, according to official data published in March. The figures did not include a breakdown by attacks on different religions.
