Germans can’t censor Brits

last updated 8 January 2015

Hamburg

A German court forbade a British tabloid this week from printing any more stories alleging that German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is having an affair with a TV personality. But after British legal experts concluded that E.U. law gives the court no jurisdiction in Britain, the Mail on Sunday gleefully repeated its story. Schröder said he would consider other action to counter the “lies.” Unlike the British press, which tends to print any and all gossip about political figures, Germany’s newspapers follow strict privacy laws, and German voters are generally uninterested in their leaders’ love lives. But Schröder’s private life is more colorful than most. His serial marriages have earned him the nickname “the Audi chancellor,” because his four wedding rings evoke the carmaker’s logo. His current wife is 20 years younger than he.