Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

How Do You Say 'Macron' in German?

The Free Democratic Party's Christian Lindner casts himself as a German version of the French political star.

June 22, 2017 at 1:19 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Could he be Germany's Macron?
Photographer: Adam Berry/Getty Images

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Most assume that voters will give German Chancellor Angela Merkel another mandate in the September elections. The big question is which party she will govern with this time.

The Free Democratic Party, which is both economically and socially liberal, is back after a four-year hiatus and hoping to claim its traditional kingmaker role. FDP leader Christian Lindner casts himself as a sort of German Emmanuel Macron. "In France, a good-looking, eloquent, reform-friendly 39-year-old has won," Lindner likes to say on the campaign trail. "I'm 38," he added for extra effect in a June 20 speech during German Industry Day in Berlin.