Merkel and Macron in northern France in 2018
Image: AFP
France risks electing a right-wing populist who hates Europe, but Germany remains strangely silent. Have we taken the Franco-German friendship for granted?
In this year, the pretty town of Saarburg in the Hunsrück, an area where some towns have just 6,000 inhabitants, is celebrating an anniversary. Saarburg is about twenty kilometers from the French border, and the start of a special relationship with France that has now lasted for seventy years is told in the town of the story of the scout group that passed by a place of the same name in France on a journey. The scouts handed the mayor of Sarrebourg a letter from their mayor, the exact wording of which is not digitally preserved, but its message is: the desire for rapprochement. This wish was fulfilled, which was quite remarkable seven years after the war.
Since then, a challenging friendship has developed between Germans and French beyond the double Saarburg. For many, it begins early in life, with a student exchange and a mixture of envy and appreciation that only two alike neighbors feel for each other, checking out the corner of their eye: So that’s how it’s going over there. Neighbors who don’t always complement each other smoothly, but have a long history together. The Elysée Treaty will be sixty next year.
#German #disinterest #care #election #France