When next Sunday the electorate of France decide between Emmanuel Macron y Marine Le Pen, Germany will be looking askance at the neighboring country. A victory for the far-right candidate would have unforeseeable consequences for the axis Berlin-Paristhe political engine of European Union. Fear has increased in Germany in recent days due to Le Pen’s explicit references to ending the collaboration between the two main EU countries as it has worked until now.
“I am aware of the economic interdependencies and reciprocal cultural influences between Germany and France”, Le Pen said during the campaign, in which he warned, however, that, if he wins, he will end “the French blindness against to Berlin” which – according to her – has marked the relations between both countries during the coexistence between Macron and Angela Merkel. A huge question mark is raised, therefore, over the German chancellery regarding the future of relations with the Elysée Palace while waiting for the polls to speak in France.
unambiguous posture
The position of the German Government regarding the second round of the French presidential elections is unequivocal: the German Federal Chancellor, the Social Democrat Olaf Scholzhas signed this week a joint letter with Pedro Sanchez and the Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, which openly calls on the French to vote for Macron. “It is the choice between a Democratic candidate, who believes that France’s strength is extended into a powerful and autonomous EU, and a candidate from extreme rightwhich openly sides with those who attack our freedom and our democracy”, reads the letter published in France by the newspaper ‘Le Monde’.
The unusual joint appeal of Scholz, Sánchez and Costa has something desperate in the face of the real possibility that Le Pen could reach the Elysee. “Le Pen’s nightmare” recently headlined the conservative newspaper ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’ an opinion column on the electoral process in the neighboring country that it describes as “fatal” for the interests of Germany and for the future of the EU.
“The EU would no longer be the same,” warns Green parliamentarian Anton Hofreiter, who chairs the Bundestag’s European Commission. Hofreiter, one of the main voices of the eco-liberal party that makes up the current Traffic Light Coalition that supports Scholz in the chancellorship, does not put any heat in analyzing the consequences of a possible victory for Le Pen: “It is hardly imaginable that the tandem Franco-German can continue to function with it. Let’s not forget that Le Pen is a far-right,” Hofreiter said recently in an interview with the Reuters news agency.
End to military collaboration
Despite the unknowns that generate an eventual Lepenista victory, the ultra presidential candidate has already announced a measure: she would put an end to the programs of military collaboration with Germany. “Because of fundamental differences and incompatible divergences, we would end all cooperation with Berlin,” Le Pen said. Thus, for example, the joint production of armament between the two countries.
“The extreme right wants to end the friendship between France and Germany, and instead establish a military alliance with Russia,” Macron said before the first round of elections. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine As a background, the French president’s warnings point to the importance of the international agenda that the French electoral campaign has taken on.
German media and analysts assume that a Le Pen president would consciously weaken the Berlin-Paris axis, and would strengthen its bilateral relations with countries on the eastern flank of the EU with an ultranationalist and eurosceptic orientation, such as the Poland governed by the PiS or the Hungary of Victor Orban.
The evolution of the relationship between Paris and Moscow is unknown in view of the fact that Le Pen has tried to hide her closeness to the Kremlin during the campaign in recent years. In any case, a victory for Le Pen “would probably be the most difficult challenge in the history of the EU,” political scientist Joachim Schild, a professor at the University of Trier, recently said in an interview with the portal ‘Euractiv’, which specializes in European politics.
AfD’s position
The consensus that is spreading in Germany about the danger of a victory for Le Pen contrasts with the position of the extreme right of AfDwho does not hide his commitment to the victory of the alternative candidate to Macron: “The presidential election in France is a great opportunity not only to reorient France, but also to the OTAN and the EU: goodbye to the wrong globalist paths”, AfD spokespersons for foreign and European policy said this Friday.
The AfD has not only shown closeness to Le Pen and Putin practically since its inception, but has also been assuming for months the discourse contrary to the “globalist elites” that other European far-right movements such as VOX in Spain or orbanism in Hungary.