55 per cent of Germans back Merkel on Greece: Poll

Chancellor Merkel visiting Infineon Technologies in Dresden, Germany, July 14, 2015. REUTERS

BERLIN (AFP) - Over half of Germans support Chancellor Angela Merkel on the latest bailout deal for Athens, while almost one third would have preferred a "Grexit", a poll said Tuesday.

A full 81 per cent said they doubted that the Greek government would actually implement the agreed reforms.

The survey found that 55 per cent said Merkel had acted correctly in the marathon negotiations that led to a provisional deal for more bailout cash in return for draconian reforms.

Of the 1,001 respondents, 31 per cent said Merkel should have pushed to force Greece out of the euro zone, according to the Forsa Institute poll conducted Monday for Stern weekly and RTL television.

A separate Forsa poll conducted last week, before the Greece crisis talks, found Merkel's approval rating remained high at 56 per cent, and support for her conservative party stood unchanged at 42 per cent.

Merkel and her hardline finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, drove a hard bargain at the talks, demanding painful reforms and a parliamentary vote by Wednesday on key austerity measures as part of an €85 billion (S$127 billion) bailout deal.

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