Friedrich Merz made his world-affairs debut Wednesday as Germany’s new chancellor, with plans to immediately team up with allies France and Poland to present a united European front on support for Ukraine and against U.

New German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced a reset in French-German relations to help Europe overcome the "enormous" security and economic challenges it faced during his first trip abroad since taking office to top ally France on Wednesday.

While already planned, the trip comes only a day after Merz was elected chancellor by parliament on the second round of voting. His unprecedented failure to succeed on the first round underscored disunity in the coalition of his conservatives and Social Democrats.