Calls for Merkel to quit amid mounting anger over crisis

NEARLY 40 per cent of German voters want Angela Merkel to resign over her handling of the migrant crisis, an opinion poll has found.

Amid fierce public opposition to her “open-door” policy, the German chancellor and her coalition partners agreed to toughen the country’s asylum rules in the wake of the Cologne sex attacks.

Almost a month after the attacks, German public opinion is split down the middle over the refugee issue, according to the poll for Focus magazine. Of the more than 2,000 people surveyed, 39.9 per cent said they believed Mrs Merkel should quit. But 45.2 per cent said they did not want her to resign, while 15 per cent were undecided.

The findings are a dramatic turnaround from before the refugee crisis began, when Mrs Merkel was seemingly unassailable.

But they do not represent a complete collapse in her support. Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrat party still tops the polls at 37 per cent together with her Bavarian allies, while her coalition partner the Social Democrats come second at 24 per cent.

The next strongest party is the Eurosceptic Alternative für Deutschland on only 11 per cent.

While the new survey’s question over whether she should resign has not been asked before, her personal approval rating dropped from 75 per cent in April last year to just 54 per cent in December.

Asylum seekers from Morocco, Alge- ria and Tunisia are to face automatic rejection, after Mrs Merkel’s government agreed to add them to the list of “safe countries” whose citizens have no claim to asylum in Germany. Most of the suspects in the New Year assaults are believed to have been North African immigrants, including many asylum seekers.

Under the new measures asylum seekers from “safe countries” will be sent to special “fast-track” centres set up to process their claims within as little as 48 hours.