Germany's next chancellor makes surprise trip to Paris for talks with Macron

PARIS, France

Germany's likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz made a surprise visit to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday.

The visit comes just days after his conservative CDU/CSU bloc emerged as the biggest party in terms of electoral seats after the German election.

The trip was expected to include discussions on the recent shift in US policy on the war in Ukraine, as well as European security issues.

Merz posted a photo of himself and Macron on social media late on Wednesday, thanking the French president for his "friendship" and "trust in German-French relations."

"Together our countries can achieve great things for Europe," Merz wrote on Instagram.

It marks Merz's first trip outside of Germany since his center-right alliance — made up of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the state of Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) — won Sunday's election with a 28.5% share of the vote, resulting in 208 seats in the German Bundestag.

With 630 seats in the Bundestag, the conservative grouping fell well short of the number needed to form a government. The next largest party is the AfD, who garnered 152 seats after Sunday's vote, but with Merz's CDU/CSU bloc ruling out working with the far-right party, the conservatives are likely to look at forming a coalition with outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD).

Those coalition talks, which are far from certain to yield success, are due to begin at a critical time for the continent, with leaders concerned that US President Donald Trump could conclude a peace deal with Russia without European involvement.

Earlier this week, Washington twice sided with Moscow in votes at the United Nations.

Those votes came as Macron visited the White House, insisting that no peace agreement could be reached without Ukraine's approval.

It remains unclear whether Macron and Trump are on the same page, despite their apparent warmth when they sat down to talk with the media as the pair rekindled their relationship from the US president's first term.