Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron at the Sorbonne, in Paris, on January 22, 2023 (POOL/AFP/Christophe Ena)
After the display of disputes, the attempted start: Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz displayed Sunday in Paris a found unit of the Franco-German “locomotive”, called to become “pioneer for the refoundation of Europe”.
On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the reconciliation treaty between the two countries, while the Old Continent has been plunged back into war for eleven months, the French president assured that this “couple” would “choose the future”, as he “knew how to do at each turning point in European construction”.
“Germany and France, because they have cleared the path to reconciliation, must become pioneers for the rebuilding of our Europe,” he declared in a willingly lyrical speech at the Sorbonne. He described the neighbors as “two souls in one chest”.
“The future, like the past, is based on the cooperation of our two countries”, “as the locomotive of a united Europe”, capable of overcoming their “differences”, abounded for his part the German Chancellor, evoking a “fraternal couple”.
He spun the metaphor of this “Franco-German engine” which often “purrs softly”, which “does not work with blows of flattery” but by the “firm will to always transform controversies” into “convergent action”.
The two leaders were then to convene a Franco-German council of ministers at the Elysée.
– Dissension outdated? –
In October, this annual meeting had to be postponed due to disagreements on a series of key issues, from energy to defence, which came to light in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine. .
Result, the meeting between the leaders of the first two powers of the European Union, whose temperaments at the antipodes complicate this particular relationship where personal ties often make the difference, is this time scrutinized to detect their degree of agreement.
Awaiting official statements, at the Sorbonne, January 22, 2023 (AFP / Ludovic MARIN)
Especially since a scent of misunderstanding has floated between them since Olaf Scholz succeeded Angela Merkel at the end of 2021, each annoyed by the initiatives taken by the other without prior consultation.
The date of the reunion is highly symbolic: sixty years to the day after the signing of the Elysée Treaty by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, this “founding act” of “reconciliation” between two countries “which had been the most bitter enemies” but “decided to become the closest allies”, said Emmanuel Macron.
Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron affirmed with one voice the objective, dear to the French president, of a more “sovereign” Europe, by investing more in defense and in industry.
The two leaders could discuss whether to send heavy tanks to kyiv, as pressure grows on Berlin to deliver its Leopard tanks to the Ukrainian army.
At the Sorbonne, Olaf Scholz confined himself to assuring that France and Germany would continue “to provide Ukraine, as long as necessary, with all the support it needs”. “Vladimir Putin’s imperialism will not win!” he insisted.
Like the deputy of the presidential party Benjamin Haddad, voices are raised in Paris for France to be “on the initiative” by sending a “limited number of Leclerc tanks to create a dynamic”.
France also warns against a “deindustrialisation” if the EU does not respond in a muscular way, with substantial funding, to the massive American plan of subsidies for renewable energies, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The president therefore hopes to rally the chancellor.
The President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet and her counterpart from the Bundestag Bärbel Bas, upon their arrival at the Sorbonne on January 22, 2023 (AFP / Ludovic MARIN)
The latter, in his speech, said he “shares” with Emmanuel Macron the “objectives” aimed at making “the investments” necessary for the Old Continent to become “a global hub of technologies of the future”, and the first “climate neutral”. in the world.
The two neighbors must also try to agree on European reforms to stem the surge in energy prices linked in particular to the war in Ukraine, and put forward joint projects in terms of innovation. A train ticket designed to encourage young people to travel between the two countries will also be launched.
Alongside the governments, parliamentary delegations from both countries also met in Paris. The President of the National Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet and her counterpart in the Bundestag Bärbel Bas paid tribute at the Pantheon to Simone Veil, “a great European” and “a woman of convictions” whose “torch” they said they wanted to carry.
© 2023 AFP
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