The relationship between France and Germany is of such import to both that each side has home-grown analogies to describe it. For the romantics in France, the country of Charles Baudelaire and Victor Hugo, the alliance is often imagined as a couple, who bicker and occasionally dally with others. In no-nonsense Germany, home of Audi and Volkswagen, the duo forms an engine, a series of controlled explosions used to drive Europe forward. Whichever image one prefers, the current state of the relationship is dire. The ardour has cooled/the cylinders are misfiring. Previous bouts of Franco-German discord strained the eu but led to resolutions that forged European integration. Today’s squabble is nothing spectacular but it is worrying: nobody can see how it ends in productive compromise.
This week ought to have marked the annual renewal of vows/regular tune-up of the Franco-German motor. A joint cabinet meeting bringing together both countries’ ministers was due to take place on October 26th. Awkwardly for a symbolic show of unity, the confab was postponed at short notice. Officially a clash of diaries was to blame; a lunch between the German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, was hastily arranged instead. In truth Germany and France are on opposing sides on an unusually long list of topics. Neither side felt its ministers had much to chat about. Repeated assurances from both capitals that things are fine merely add to the feeling they are not.
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