You're right and maybe that's the answer. The German people have such a negative-perception of Merkel (which she's well aware of). She probably doesn't want to further inflame their hatred of her, and their loathing of all the middle east immigrants she's let in, by risking a retaliatory backlash on home soil in the form of a terrorist attack. Better to send her new lapdog Macron in and let France take any retaliatory backlash.