Europe’s odd couple

The Franco-German duo have lost their passion and sense of destiny. Yet they remain essential

See article

Readers' comments



la.výritý in reply to emmafinney

Stupid comment!

The two things are not comparable. With a Communist insurgency threatening Greece, and Britain - Greece's protecting power then - financially unable to aid, the US President had to announce his anti-communist Doctrine on 12 March 1947, "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures". Otherwise Greece would have been lost to communism. The Greek middle and upper class was overly thankful then.
Today, despite that Greece got already hundred times the aid it received 1947, the 'spoiled' people expect ever more. This is the result of 'modern' socialist entitlement-mentality.

la.výritý in reply to emmafinney

Yahoo question: "Why arranged marriage last longer than love marriage?"

Yahoo's top answer: "Arranged marriages last longer because the person gets to know the other in a deeper level. Like you married the person, so right there and then you are committed to the person. So the arranged marriage becomes a love marriage." (end quote)

Dominique II in reply to guest-ioamnjm

You're right about the UK's initial rejection of the EEC, which they later sought to reverse when they found themselves in the EFTA dead end. However when De Gaulle (elected French President in the meantime) refused to let them in, it was not so much because of economic criteria, for which he held a robust disdain, but because of their rigid Atlanticism. If he had suspected their future behavior within the EEC as a permanent spanner in the works, he certainly would have ushered them in with a red carpet: he was no federalist.

Dominique II in reply to emmafinney

It's Mitterrand with 2 r, and he did go on famously with Kohl, like Giscard got on famously with Schmidt - in both cases a leftie and a rightie, like today. Not to mention that his concern with hasty German reunification was shared by Maggie, and I cannot imagine him running frantically or mouthing the word "Boches" (which nobody has been using in my lifetime). What a strange cardboard world you live in.

Dominique II

Old couples who have tiffs and holiday separately last longer than "fusional" ones. And they provide fodder to cantakerous neighbors, as seen on this forum.

The husband sees little reason to trust his wife either since she blackmailed him into in illegal debt union.

Oscar Wilde was right: One should always be in love. That is the reason why one should never marry.

The Euro-marriage was too much.

"Germanophobia seems to be the base of the French society and politics."

You'll have to look long and hard to find cartoons of Merkel in pointy helmet in the French press. Quite common elsewhere.

But don't let reality stand in the way of a nice xenophobic preemptive strike.


"The Elysée treaty was signed days after de Gaulle had contemptuously vetoed Britain’s bid to join the European project, an exclusion that lasted a decade and stirred British resentment"

On the UK side tey never start this story at the beginning. The UK was invited to be a founding member of what is today the EU (together with France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg).

They refused. The Rome treaty was signed without them. By the time they changed their minds (it's not from today they changed their mind on this topic!) they were in a bad economic situation (remember the common expression the "sick man of Europe" at that time) and didn't meet the economic criteria to join, which is why they were not accepted.

"Mrs Merkel and Mr Hollande gave the nod for the European Central Bank to threaten intervention in the markets. They have started to build a banking union. And they have stopped Greece falling out of the euro."

Not a bad achievement especially when it requires the agreement of 17 independent countries! Compare this with the difficulty of one country, the USA, to agree to... delay (not solve) a solution to the "fiscal cliff" issue.

Now that the Euro crisis is coming to an end further steps starting with the Banking Union will continue the European integration


"destined to stick together" - never less than today - which is what everybody is scared about. Which scares me most, is TE actually condoning the relationship – nothing can be well.

The need to celebrate a contract with little (perceived) effect on day-to-day politics as big as it has been, and much more vocal in Germany than in France, and quickly overshadowed by Cameron's referendum speech. Everybody was too scared to linger.....

Nothing is well, as the post WW2 relationship needs to be recalibrated, reflecting changed realities... of a "bigger" Germany and a in relation "weaker" France.... thus turning the balance of power upside down...

Both partners are very unsure and unhappy about the change, thus rather not treading the new path....

Up to now the Germans are putting much more economic resources into the relationship, and even if nobody would dare to admit it, both know this has to change - possibly without loss of face for anybody concerned.

I just hope the Berlin diplomatic machine is not hopelessly out of depth with juggling the relationship with its two most important partners – Great Britain and France. To achieve medium term equilibrium, the euro – which is one of the worst manifestations of the “old Europe” – needs to go – to allow all to move on together.


Berend Mondriaan

I'm so glad that even the Economist now seems to see the German French relationship as a "fact acompli". As for Britain opting 'in' or 'out' of mainland Europe and their transatlantic relationship: time will tell, but unfortunately I can't be very optimistic for the native people in Great Britain.
As for the financial world: it can and will move to and from wherever it pleases, whic also means "in" and "out" of London when necesary.

Courtjester in reply to emmafinney

Ah Emma,

have you come round to reality for once? Or may we take this as admittance - you just try to infuriate everybody by claiming the opposite....

Why should anybody take you seriously, ever again?


Being honest it is more than obvious and nothing but a matter of fact that there is since a series of years no common ground between Germany and France.
France has its own ideas and goes its own way and Germany has lost interest.
Germany goes its own way and Merkel and Hollande do not have to discuss anything.
So Germany must look for a new orientation in Europe without France.
The divorce of this odd couple is more than obvious.
The actual German government lets its relationships to France just peter out.
Mali as well as Libya were a good example because Germany wants to avoid any kind of an involvement into the interior affairs of another country.
Mali is a French colony and therefore nothing but an interior and private affair of France.
So the actual German politics towards France is more than wise.
Germany never will be a partner for international adventures of other countries.


Obviously the weirdest thing I ever read in British medias:)
Seems to be an excellent example of the usual biting British humor:)

Quite similar nonsense and jokes you can notice daily in France and the rest of Europe.

There must be a broad attack of cynical humor against Germany and the Germans:)
Of course nobody in Germany will take that for serious as everybody is pretty well aware that the old bias and stereotypes are so profound that they must stay insurmountable for ever.

I think the Franco-German relationship is already a dead horse.
The French do not want it and Hollande as well as the whole political class in France is strictly against any kind of a Franco-German relationship.
So nothing new at all :)
Fortunately German politics was drawing the right consequences.
It makes no longer sense investing anything into Franco-German cooperation.

Rivierarocket in reply to flowfall

The husband (Merkel and Germany) should not trust the wife (Holland France)who has been sleeping around with the Spanish and Italians.

As for the wife sleeping with the Germans...Well..been there.. done that...

Dominique II in reply to emmafinney

This wife-husband imagery is so silly it hurts when I stop laughing. Are you like those prissy old ladies of either gender who always try and guess, when spotting an homosexual pair, which "is the woman"? Ludicrous.



Products and events


Take our weekly news quiz to stay on top of the headlines

