The first foreign head of state to be invited to take part in the anniversary of the promulgation of the German Basic Law, the French President, who decided to visit Saxony for the second part of his historic state visit to Germany, did not, however, choose to root it in the history of Franco-German reconciliation and joint reconstruction after the Second World War, but in the European adventures of Napoleon I, whose kingdom of Saxony was the last great German ally, something that many actors and observers on both sides of the Rhine seem to have forgotten. Starting with the German authorities, who were astonished by Emmanuel Macron’s original choice, expecting instead a second stopover in North Rhine-Westphalia or Saarland, which seemed the obvious destinations.
But it seems that the French President did not make a priority of this visit to thank Düsseldorf for the crucial and perilous support of its former Minister President, Armin Laschet, for his European recovery plan, categorically rejected by Olaf Scholz, then Federal Finance Minister, who could count on the support of German public opinion, hostile, on principle, to any debt mutualisation. Without the influence and perseverance of Laschet, who was once tipped to succeed Chancellor Merkel, Berlin would never have approved the coronabonds.
By choosing North Rhine-Westphalia to express his gratitude to Armin Laschet, Mr Macron could have made friends with his successor and protégé Hendrick Wüst, who played a key role in the Franco-Westphalian negotiations on the coronabonds. What’s more, both would have had the opportunity to discuss another mutualisation challenge facing Europe, namely the single capital market.
Not even Saarland, whose Executive is traditionally the most Francophile, could have objected to Düsseldorf being preferred to them, notwithstanding the unprecedented Francophone policy that has been pursued there for several years: by 2043, all Saarlanders under the age of 20 will be bilingual, thanks to the generalisation of French language teaching in all nurseries and kindergartens.
The idea behind this French-speaking policy for this state, which was once destined to become the seat of European institutions if its voters hadn’t rejected European status in the 1955 referendum, is to enable all its inhabitants to benefit from the opportunities created by the constitution of the Großregion in 2006. Two languages are spoken in this Euroregion, which brings together Wallonia, Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, Lorraine and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg: French and German.
The development of bilingualism in Saarland is, therefore, a matter of regional integration and development, intending to create a true territorial community, something in which Saarland has shown itself to be a forerunner since its government has entrusted the management of its permanent representation in Paris to a Moselle native, none other than former LREM deputy Christophe Arend, who was also President of the France-Germany friendship group in the French National Assembly – as if the borders between the different regions had already disappeared!
However, it was indeed Saxony that French President Emmanuel Macron chose as the second and final stop on this first French state visit in 24 years. This is a particularly significant choice, even though German politicians and journalists were astonished by it, and were a little too quick to put it down to Macron’s whims, which are regularly mocked across the Rhine.
Indeed, the choice of Saxony as a new German campaign is an unprecedented indication of Emmanuel Macron’s long-standing determination to break away from the Europe of the Congress of Vienna, in which France feels restricted and cramped, and to bring our German partners closer to the French position on European autonomy and Europe’s role and place in the world.
This feeling that French power and European singularity are being held back by the German establishment goes back a long way since General de Gaulle already had complicated relations with the liberals in Bonn, who didn’t at all share his rejection of the blocs and his ambition for France and Europe to propose a third way to the rest of the world. The same applied to the Christian-Democratic movement, then spearheading European and Atlanticist ideas, in which he feared an American fifth column, a few years after the controversy surrounding flag bills, the currency printed and imposed by the Americans on French soil in 1944.
Unlike our German friends, the General wanted Europe to become an autonomous alliance, which would have enabled European nation-states to reclaim their place in the world. He therefore strongly supported the idea of a European defense, although he was opposed, not without reason, to the EDC, which could have threatened the French Empire, particularly in Indochina, where French and American interests conflicted – but he was one of the few in France to accept the rearmament of the BRD planned within the framework of the European Defense Community, which demonstrates the sincerity of his European commitment, albeit still debated today.
It is precisely in the area of common European defence that President Emmanuel Macron intends to convince the Germans, against a backdrop of possible Ukraine collapse and Russian annexation. To this end, he is said to be prepared, behind the scenes, to share France’s deterrent force with the European Union. An idea that originated in Germany, initially with the sole aim of embarrassing the French when they became too insistent in matters of European sovereignty, and which was deciphered on the other side of the Rhine as anti-Atlanticism, before establishing itself as a new axis of German foreign policy, with Berlin eyeing not only the French deterrent force, but also the permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
In the opinion of many within the French military elite, such a concession would not serve the interests of the European Union or lead to any common defence but would cripple the French deterrent force and the permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and strengthen American influence.
An influence that Mr Macron, the most Atlanticist of the presidents of the Fifth Republic, does not consider to be a problem, contrary to what his anti-American digital giants and non-alignment rhetoric might suggest, which only incidentally target the USA and China.
And yet, for the time being, it is indeed the German-American relationship that is holding back the implementation of a common European defence (and not an EDC bis), which could be accepted by the staff of the EU’s only nuclear power. So how can the French President move forward on this issue while ignoring or evading this fact?
He returns to France, moreover, without any results on the matter, not even on the Ukrainian file, while Russia continues its offensive in Ukraine with impunity and the next European Parliament is likely to have more pro-Russian deputies, according to various polls that show the extreme right parties in progression compared to 2019 – a progression that some explain by the new McCarthyism that has taken hold of Europe since the pogroms of October 7 and the war in Gaza.
In the end, perhaps it would have been better for his chances of success if Emmanuel Macron had not chosen a Land that gave its name to a fatal campaign, even though Dresden was a Napoleonic victory.
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