AFP, Paris :AFP journalists have chosen Angela Merkel as the most influential figure of 2015 after the German chancellor stamped her mark on the European migrant and Greek financial crises.The vote by editorial staff from all services and languages across the world put Russian President Vladimir Putin as number two on alist of people who most influenced world affairs over the year. Putin had the top spot in the agency’s 2014 vote.The chancellor’s open-door policy brought around a million refugees to Germany over 2015. The flood of migrants, a consequence of the devastating war in Syria, was the biggest in Europe since World War II and put the continent under huge strain, exposing its fault lines. For hopeful Syrian and Afghan refugees she was “Mama Merkel”; some of her European counterparts and party colleagues were less welcoming, even openly critical.Merkel’s authority as the de facto leader of Europe was also on display during Greece’s protracted financial saga, when she stood firm as the country’s far-left government pushed back against austerity measures intended to save its economy and place in Europe.Merkel was also voted Time magazine’s Person of the Year. He was shunned by world leaders and put under sanctions for Russia’s role in the 2014 standoff in Ukraine. But Putin was still able to impose himself on this year’s most pressing problems, returning to the diplomatic centre stage over the Syrian conflict.Syrian President Bashar al-Assad owes his political survival to Putin’s military backing, and the two allies have made themselves indispensable to efforts to end the four-year war that only started taking shape late this year.From the US-Cuba reconciliation to progress towards peace in Colombia, the Argentinian pope continues to influence the weighty issues of his home region. He also remained active more globally, for example with a courageous visit to volatile Central Africa, while pursuing his drive to modernise and open up the Catholic Church. They were 1.5 million to take to the streets of the French capital after the January attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and a kosher supermarket that left 17 people dead.Paris was hit again before the year was out when jihadists linked to the Islamic State group mowed down 130 people in cafes and the Bataclan concert hall, venues emblematic of the city’s way of life and now of resistance to terrorism.While Baghdadi remained largely invisible over the year, the Islamic State group that he heads extended its murderous campaign beyond the territory it controls in Iraq and Syria, growing its presence in Libya and claiming the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt.
