From the cupola of the great amphitheater of the Sorbonne, the five large medallions in monochrome representing the sciences, letters, law, medicine and theology will judge the event. Sunday January 22, in the morning, in one of the oldest universities on the continent (founded in 1253), the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz must meet Emmanuel Macron, where the French President made his great speech on Europe in 2017.
The two men are supposed to speak with one voice, in memory of the Élysée Treaty signed sixty years earlier by President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, and to convince that they are well able to plug the cracks appeared in the Franco-German relationship under the tremors of the war in Ukraine.
“A difficult time”
The two leaders do not have the intimate complicity of the Kohl-Mitterrand couple, immortalized hand in hand in Verdun in 1984 in front of the Douaumont ossuary. They did not find the harmonious understanding of the Giscard-Schmidt tandem in the face of the monetary crisis, nor the frank camaraderie born of the management of the war in Iraq, between Chirac and Schröder. Starting from afar, Merkel and Hollande had also ended up joining forces, facing Putin, to win the 2015 ceasefire and the Minsk agreements, after the annexation of Crimea. Almost everything remains to be done to forge the Macron-Scholz alloy.
Memory constrains them as much as events. Unmissable on the agenda, the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty – which drew a line under the bloody past of the two “hereditary enemies” – leads them to pick up the pieces. The Dutch writer and philosopher Luuk Van Middelaar, who was a member of the cabinet of the President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, talks about a « moment difficile » to cross, since the shock of February 24, 2022, with a Europe of defense and energy to be rethought, and a continental map to be redrawn. “When you’re a couple and you’re in the middle of a move, you have to talk about it: for France, it’s very uncomfortable to see Europe sliding towards the East”, he believes. Evidenced by the great speech of Scholz in Prague on the future of Europe, last August, which did not mention France, even if it responded to certain concerns of Paris.
Rider alone
Between Paris and Berlin, things have gone from bad to worse since the end of the summer. The 23rd Franco-German Council of Ministers, which will take place at the Elysee Palace on Sunday afternoon in the wake of the Sorbonne ceremony, has been postponed twice, in July and then in October. Officially for availability issues, unofficially for lack of content to agree on. The executives (18 ministers on the German side, 19 on the French side) claim to have worked tirelessly to give themselves common ground to grind in 2023, on three axes: economic, industrial, energy and environmental challenges; strategic and security challenges; finally the future of Europe. The day will end with a one-on-one dinner between the Chancellor and the President.
It is difficult to launch very large projects, particularly on defence, in a context where the urgency is rather to act in a coordinated manner between allies for the delivery of tanks and heavy weapons to Ukraine, in preparation for a vast Russian offensive in the spring. In the long term, Berlin and Paris have confirmed the construction, by 2029 at best, of a first joint prototype of the aircraft of the future (Scaf). But for the management of the current conflict, Olaf Scholz was taken aback, at the beginning of January, when Emmanuel Macron undertook to deliver AMX-10RC light tanks without bothering to warn the Chancellor.
This lone rider has not been the only element that has deteriorated the relationship on both sides of the Rhine in recent months. In October, the announcement by Olaf Scholz of a massive energy aid plan of 200 billion euros without referring to the Elysée paralyzed France and the rest of Europe, faced with possible distortions of competition from such a measure. For Hans Stark, advisor for Franco-German relations at Ifri, it is important to put an end to unpleasant surprises. “Scholz and Macron have an obligation of result, within the defined framework of their relations: no chancellor can fail in his relationship with France without being cooked vis-à-vis his electorate, and the same can be said of the party presidential election, even if he has to maneuver between two formations that are Germanosceptic to say the least in the National Assembly at the extremities of the political spectrum”, emphasizes the expert.
“The same humor”
The historian of Franco-German relations Hélène Miard-Delacroix says she is quite confident about the future development of the relationship between Scholz the silent and Macron the talkative. “Many other pairs started from afar. Remember Merkel and Sarkozy. Each time it took time for the links to be put in place. Scholz likes to take his even more than Merkel, in a three-party coalition (Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals, Editor’s note) with very different positions, while Macron is the man of speed. » The researcher at the Sorbonne, invited to the large amphitheater on Sunday, underlines disagreements of a technical nature, but basically not ideological or programmatic. “I am convinced that they will find common ground, including on a personal level. They have the same humour, made up of innuendo and half-said sentences, they just don’t have the same rhythm. »
In the weeks to come, the Franco-German couple will be declined at ministerial level, to get out of the exclusive face-to-face meeting between the President and the Chancellor, on the model of the joint trip by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock and Catherine Colonna in Ethiopia a week ago. A joint trip by economy ministers Bruno Le Maire and Robert Habeck is planned to Washington, probably in February, demonstrating a concerted approach to counter the Inflation Reduction Act, a $400 billion plan for climate and health. , with large subsidies for American industrialists.
Paris and Berlin also promise to agree on hydrogen and the energy market, despite very different models. The two capitals intend to deepen cross-border links through transport, promote young talents together, intensify the learning of French and German at school, etc.
On Sunday at the Sorbonne, Chancellor Scholz and President Macron planned to give impetus to this phase of improving and intensifying ties. The walls of the establishment, which have preserved the bullet holes of the Second World War, oblige them.
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The Élysée Treaty, a historic framework for Paris and Berlin
On January 22, 1963, General de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer signed a cooperation treaty at the Élysée palace intended to seal the reconciliation between France and the Federal Republic of Germany.
The Franco-German Council of Ministers was established in 2003 for the 40th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty.
In 2019, France and Germany reaffirmed the Élysée Treaty with the Treaty from Aachen, signed by Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron. It establishes the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly (50 deputies from the National Assembly, and 50 deputies from the Bundestag), which must meet twice a year.