(Bloomberg) -- Martin Schulz, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's main election opponent, said the race isn't over yet and evoked his battle with alcoholism as a young man as a reason to keep fighting.
Schulz, whose Social Democrats trail Merkel's party bloc by 14 percentage points in the latest poll, said in a live interview Tuesday on Google's YouTube platform that defeating his drinking habit at age 24 taught him a valuable lesson.
“I know life at the top and at the very bottom and I've learned that you must never give up,” Schulz told Nihan, a blogger with about 800,000 subscribers on YouTube. The former European Parliament president cited polls suggesting that many voters are undecided, less than three weeks before the election on Sept. 24.
Schulz's bid to reach young voters follows his failure to derail Merkel during a televised debate, the only one of the campaign, on Sunday. The chancellor went on YouTube last month, appearing at ease even though she's something of a social-media neophyte: Merkel is the only Group of Seven leader without a personal Twitter account.
Schulz, 61, presented himself as a viable alternative for the chancellorship in the interview, lashing out against the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party, vowing to talk tough with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and urging spending to teach coding in German schools to keep the country competitive as the global economy digitizes.
On a personal note, Schulz talked about questionable things he did as a teenager. After a wild night out, he climbed the fence of a public swimming pool, dumped detergent in the water and got away before the police arrived. “I was quick enough,” he said with a smirk.
To contact the reporters on this story: Stefan Nicola in Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.net, Birgit Jennen in Berlin at bjennen1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka, Chad Thomas
Essential Business Intelligence, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice, Daily Fuel, Gold and Silver Prices and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
