Dyears the European chancelleries, it is fashionable to mock anyone who dares to evoke the“Franco-German axis” And, more, the “Franco-German couple”. It is clear that, despite the signing of the Aix-la-Chapelle Treaty (Germany) in 2019, the relationship between Paris and Berlin has only deteriorate for almost a decade. At all levels of society, the links are distended and the memory of our common history, which was long the basis of the rapprochement of our two nations, dissolves.
It is also at the top of power that frustrations accumulate. From 2017, most of the proposals made by Emmanuel Macron in his Sorbonne speech received no echo across the Rhine. Then, under Olaf Scholz (elected in 2021), the German government, entangled in its intestine struggles, proved unable to give the slightest impetus to the European project and was even, most often, an obstacle to any advance.
For its part, the French power has irritated and disoriented German leaders, by its recurring propensity to make a rider alone. Above all, from the nuclear question to European defense, including trade policy or our relationship to China and the United States, the subjects of disagreement have multiplied.
Dynamic news
In this Franco-German vacuum, reinforced by the internal weakening of our two countries, other actors have tried to rush. In Brussels, the chairman of the commission, Ursula von der Leyen, sought to impose her own vision of the European general interest. It is also between member states that new power dynamics have emerged. Mocked at the time of the euro zone crisis, the countries of southern Europe now take their economic revenge. While Germany is in recession, Spain has growth of almost 3.5 %. While France is unable to make the recovery of its public finances, Portugal has assured its own and now displays a budgetary surplus.
You have 68.5% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
Source: Lemonde