The leader of Germany’s conservatives, Friedrich Merz, said this weekend’s emphatic victory in state elections put his Christian Democrats (CDU) in “first place” nationwide, as he turned up the heat on Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “The election result is a clear answer to the federal government and the chancellor,” Merz said in Berlin on Monday. Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) came second in the industrial western state of North Rhine Westphalia, losing out by a larger margin – nine percentage points – than polls had predicted. “Since yesterday, the CDU is again in first place among the German part…