Almost half of Germans want Merkel to resign, poll shows

A survey carried out by YouGov and published on Friday shows that 43 percent of Germans want Merkel to leave office.

The survey also revealed that 42 percent of respondents wanted the veteran Chancellor to stay on as head of government, while 15 percent did not give a response either way.

Somewhat surprisingly, Merkel is most popular among voters of the environmentalist Green party, two thirds of whom said she should stay in office.

She is slightly less loved by voters of the conservative Union, which includes her own Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU).

Some 63 percent of Union voters said they wanted her to stay on as Chancellor, while 27 percent want her to go. Merkel is currently entangled in a power battle with the CSU over border controls that is threatening to collapse her coalition barely three months after it was established.