Sort your data for each country individually

Code
<?php

$array 
= array('a''g''A''ä''Ä''k''z');

sort($array);

echo 
'sort = ' implode(','$array) . PHP_EOL;

$collator = new Collator('de_DE');
$collator->setAttribute(Collator::CASE_FIRSTCollator::LOWER_FIRST);
$collator->sort($array);

echo 
'Collator::sort = ' implode(','$array) . PHP_EOL;
Result
sort = A,a,g,k,z,Ä,ä
Collator::sort = a,A,ä,Ä,g,k,z
Used Versions
PHP 8.2, Laminas MVC 3.2, Symfony 5.2, Laravel 8.28, PHPUnit 9.5, Doctrine ORM 2.8