Merkel 'deeply convinced' by party's chancellor candidate

BERLIN (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday said she is “deeply convinced” by Armin Laschet, her conservative party’s choice to succeed her in September’s elections, in a bid to give his struggling campaign a big boost.

“It has always been important to him to place the individual and their inviolable dignity at the centre of everything... I am deeply convinced that it is precisely with this attitude that (he) will serve the people of Germany as chancellor,” she said at the conservative CDU-CSU’s election rally in Berlin.