Germany faces snap election as Scholz’s coalition crumbles

The collapse of Scholz’s three-way alliance caps months of wrangling over budget policy and Germany’s economic direction, with the government’s popularity sinking and far-right and far-left forces surging.

Germany’s ruling coalition collapsed on Wednesday as Chancellor Olaf Scholz sacked his finance minister and paved the way for a snap election, triggering political chaos in Europe’s largest economy hours after Donald Trump won the US presidential election.