“Mr. Chancellor, dear Olaf Scholz …” It is 3 p.m. on Wednesday December 8 when Angela Merkel says these few words. The tone is so natural and so devoid of emphasis that you think you are attending a banal press briefing. Then we are reminded of the solemnity of the moment when the woman who led Germany for sixteen years concludes her brief intervention – barely two minutes – by addressing this injunction to her successor: “Take possession of this house and work for the good of our country. “
With these words, which will remain the last of her long reign at the head of Germany, Angela Merkel leaves the desk from which she has spoken hundreds of times, in this space on the first floor of the Chancellery usually reserved for conferences Press. Then Olaf Scholz gets up, hands him a bouquet of flowers, and takes his place behind the famous desk. “Dear Angela Merkel, dear Chancellor, I would like to thank you warmly for the work you have done over the past sixteen years. Sixteen years during which we were confronted with serious crises which we sometimes had to overcome together ”, declares the one who, a few hours earlier, was still only his finance minister and vice-chancellor.
“Between us, there has always been a bond of trust. This is a good thing because it shows that we live in a strong democracy. »And to conclude with this promise: “I want this house to stay true to the mentality, so typical of north-eastern Germany, that has reigned there so far. ” A way for the former mayor of Hamburg to mark his continuity, as he had done during his campaign, with the all-sober style of the one who was MP for Stralsund for thirty years, on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
Long standing ovation
Sobriety, there will have been in reality throughout this historic day which began, around 9 a.m., when the new president of the Bundestag, the social democrat Bärbel Bas, declared open the meeting of which the only item on the agenda was the election of the new chancellor.
At that moment, Angela Merkel was still officially head of government, but already, she was nothing more than a spectator of herself. Quite a symbol: she who, for thirty-one years, had her place in the Hemicycle, as deputy, minister or chancellor, attended the meeting from the stands reserved for the public, where she was entitled to a long standing ovation in which all deputies took part except those from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
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