Olaf Scholz is coming under pressure to follow Emannuel Macron’s example and call a snap election after his party suffered a humiliating defeat in EU elections.
“This government is basically finished and we need to do what France has done,” Markus Söder, the conservative governor of Bavaria, said on Monday.
Mr Söder added that Mr Scholz’ government “no longer has the trust of the population, that’s why there should be new elections as soon as possible.”
The centre-Right Christian Democrats, the main opposition in Germany’s parliament, also called on the Chancellor to call a vote of confidence on Monday to test whether he still has the support of his shaky three-way coalition.
Mr Scholz’ Social Democrats scored their worst ever EU election result, winning just 14 percent of the vote, according to exit polls.
His coalition partners, the Greens and the Free Democrats, also fared badly as the German public swung decisively to the Right.