The conservative leader wants to impose strict border controls after knife killings in Aschaffenburg this week.

Friedrich Merz, the conservative front-runner in the race for Germany’s chancellorship, called for a radical overhaul of the country’s migration policy including permanent border checks. The comments come after an asylum seeker from Afghanistan was taken into custody over a fatal stabbing of a two-year-old child and a man in a park on Wednesday.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's opposition leader vowed Thursday to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected chancellor next month, as a knife attack by a rejected asylum-seeker spilled over into an election campaign in which he is the front-runner.

In Germany, the fatal knife attack by a 28-year-old Afghan in Aschaffenburg has once again triggered a debate on asylum. CDU leader Friedrich Merz

Friedrich Merz, the leading candidate for the chancellery in Germany's upcoming election, said a leaked briefing by Germany's ambassador to the United States heavily criticising Donald Trump was damaging to the German government's reputation.

Tucking into beer and pretzels, the frontrunner to become Germany's next chancellor, conservative millionaire Friedrich Merz, is showing off his folksy side.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that he met with German opposition leader Friedrich Merz, just weeks before a federal election in Germany. "We discussed ways to further advance a just peace for Ukraine,

Latest YouGov poll shows Friedrich Merz's conservative CDU/CSU bloc commanding 28% of voter support, leading Chancellor Scholz's Social Democrats by 9 percentage points - Anadolu Ajansı

Mr Merz argued the need “to negotiate with the American side from a position of strength”. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Donald Trump's return to the White House has darkened the mood in Germany a month before elections, as multiple crises shake the foundations on which Europe's biggest economy built its

German opposition leader Friedrich Merz sees potential in collaborating with U.S. President Trump, advocating for a strong European negotiating stance. His call for unified military purchases faces challenges from France's defense industry.

Germany's election frontrunner says Europeans are waiting for Germany to take the lead on dealing with the new American president.