The French are Revolting!
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The French are Revolting!
From today's Sunday Telegraph...
Now, if the jolly old Germans had done this 70 years ago, we wouldn't have had all that trouble...
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">AN emergency Franco-German summit has been arranged to address
mounting alarm in Berlin over French attitudes to Europe.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's ministers are
worried by a combination of political paralysis in
Paris and entrenched anti-German prejudice which,
they believe, is threatening the entire process of
European integration and expansion.
The meeting, between Mr Schröder and President
Jacques Chirac in late January, is a direct
consequence of the recent Nice summit on EU
enlargement which, say German observers,
exposed a fundamental shift in the Franco-German
relationship that has served as the linchpin of
European co-operation for almost 40 years.
German officials say that Nice stripped away the remaining veneer of entente
between the two allies to reveal a defensive France, obsessed with pursuing
its own interests, paranoid about the re-united Germany's future European
role, and paralysed by its own domestic politics. "The French can no longer
go on behaving as if they were living in the Napoleonic era and the Berlin Wall
had never fallen," said one German official after Nice.
Germany will attempt to put the two-power alliance back on course at the
forthcoming summit that will also be attended by the French premier Lionel
Jospin and senior ministers. Observers are sceptical about the meeting's
chances of success.
"To date, France has shown itself incapable of grasping the fact that the
goalposts have shifted," said Joachim Schild of the German-French Institute in
Ludwigsburg. "It still tends to treat Europe as if it were simply an extension of
France and goes on pursuing its own interests, often to the detriment of
partners."
At Nice, the Germans were upset by Mr Chirac's insistence on France
retaining voting parity with Germany on the European Council of Ministers,
even though the latter's population has grown by more than a third as a result
of re-unification.
Particularly galling was the French argument that the arrangement was an
irrevocable condition of the Franco-German alliance agreed by Charles de
Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer more than 40 years ago. Voting parity, implied
Mr Chirac, was the price Germans had to pay for French suffering in three
wars instigated by Germany over the past 130 years.
Publicly, Mr Schröder described Mr Chirac's outburst in Nice as
"occasionally exaggerated". In private, however, German officials see the
French leader's stance as totally outdated. "The relationship between Paris
and Berlin can no longer be determined by the legacy of three wars and the
fact that France has the atomic bomb whereas Germany does not," one said.
Further ructions have been caused in Germany by Mr Chirac's insistence that
Europe's future autonomous military force should operate "independently"
when planning operations. The Germans maintain that this would make it
virtually impossible for such a unit to co-operate effectively with Nato and the
United States.
German observers say that obstructive posturing on such key issues as
defence and voting amounts to an attempt to conceal waning French influence
in Europe. They say it highlights Paris's inability to redefine its relationship with
a new and more powerful Germany committed to the idea of EU enlargement.
A fundamental reworking of the Franco-German relationship, which began as
a mutual gesture of post-war reconciliation, has been overdue since the fall of
the Berlin Wall. Despite French misgivings about German re-unification, the
two sides have, until now, managed to maintain the status quo in return for
German commitment to European unity and a pledge to exchange the mark
for the euro. With European enlargement in the offing, and Germany now run
by a generation with no first-hand recollection of the Second World War,
Berlin has begun to bridle at the constraints imposed through its relationship
with Paris.
"The upshot is that France is now having to come to terms with the changes,"
said Joachim Schild. "The experience is proving so painful that the French
political elite has opted to duck the issue." Political stagnation in France has
strengthened Paris's hard line over Europe. The already uneasy "cohabitation"
between the Gaullist president and his Socialist prime minister has become
fraught with intrigue and competitive point-scoring. The rivalry between the
two leaders threatens to intensify in the run-up to next year's presidential
election, which will pit Mr Chirac against Mr Jospin.
"In the pre-election atmosphere that now prevails in France, Chirac has
become frightened of laying himself open to criticism from Jospin," said Mr
Schild, "so he has sought to capture the moral high ground on Europe by
playing the French-interest card." Without any coherent policy on Europe, Mr
Jospin's Socialists have remained largely silent on the issue, fearing that any
outspoken policy commitment would risk damaging criticism from Mr
Chirac's Gaullists.
Against this background, German hopes that the forthcoming summit will
herald a "return to common sense" in the old alliance seem optimistic. Failure
to achieve this objective would be a big disappointment to Joschka Fischer,
Germany's francophile foreign minister. Like many previous post-war German
politicians, he continues to see close ties with France as a prerequisite for
shaping German policy on Europe.
Mr Schröder has fewer qualms. If anything, his government's misgivings about
France have won him public respect by demonstrating Germany's new-found
self-confidence on European affairs. He has also made no secret of the fact
that Berlin is intent on developing its relationship with London.</font>
mounting alarm in Berlin over French attitudes to Europe.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's ministers are
worried by a combination of political paralysis in
Paris and entrenched anti-German prejudice which,
they believe, is threatening the entire process of
European integration and expansion.
The meeting, between Mr Schröder and President
Jacques Chirac in late January, is a direct
consequence of the recent Nice summit on EU
enlargement which, say German observers,
exposed a fundamental shift in the Franco-German
relationship that has served as the linchpin of
European co-operation for almost 40 years.
German officials say that Nice stripped away the remaining veneer of entente
between the two allies to reveal a defensive France, obsessed with pursuing
its own interests, paranoid about the re-united Germany's future European
role, and paralysed by its own domestic politics. "The French can no longer
go on behaving as if they were living in the Napoleonic era and the Berlin Wall
had never fallen," said one German official after Nice.
Germany will attempt to put the two-power alliance back on course at the
forthcoming summit that will also be attended by the French premier Lionel
Jospin and senior ministers. Observers are sceptical about the meeting's
chances of success.
"To date, France has shown itself incapable of grasping the fact that the
goalposts have shifted," said Joachim Schild of the German-French Institute in
Ludwigsburg. "It still tends to treat Europe as if it were simply an extension of
France and goes on pursuing its own interests, often to the detriment of
partners."
At Nice, the Germans were upset by Mr Chirac's insistence on France
retaining voting parity with Germany on the European Council of Ministers,
even though the latter's population has grown by more than a third as a result
of re-unification.
Particularly galling was the French argument that the arrangement was an
irrevocable condition of the Franco-German alliance agreed by Charles de
Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer more than 40 years ago. Voting parity, implied
Mr Chirac, was the price Germans had to pay for French suffering in three
wars instigated by Germany over the past 130 years.
Publicly, Mr Schröder described Mr Chirac's outburst in Nice as
"occasionally exaggerated". In private, however, German officials see the
French leader's stance as totally outdated. "The relationship between Paris
and Berlin can no longer be determined by the legacy of three wars and the
fact that France has the atomic bomb whereas Germany does not," one said.
Further ructions have been caused in Germany by Mr Chirac's insistence that
Europe's future autonomous military force should operate "independently"
when planning operations. The Germans maintain that this would make it
virtually impossible for such a unit to co-operate effectively with Nato and the
United States.
German observers say that obstructive posturing on such key issues as
defence and voting amounts to an attempt to conceal waning French influence
in Europe. They say it highlights Paris's inability to redefine its relationship with
a new and more powerful Germany committed to the idea of EU enlargement.
A fundamental reworking of the Franco-German relationship, which began as
a mutual gesture of post-war reconciliation, has been overdue since the fall of
the Berlin Wall. Despite French misgivings about German re-unification, the
two sides have, until now, managed to maintain the status quo in return for
German commitment to European unity and a pledge to exchange the mark
for the euro. With European enlargement in the offing, and Germany now run
by a generation with no first-hand recollection of the Second World War,
Berlin has begun to bridle at the constraints imposed through its relationship
with Paris.
"The upshot is that France is now having to come to terms with the changes,"
said Joachim Schild. "The experience is proving so painful that the French
political elite has opted to duck the issue." Political stagnation in France has
strengthened Paris's hard line over Europe. The already uneasy "cohabitation"
between the Gaullist president and his Socialist prime minister has become
fraught with intrigue and competitive point-scoring. The rivalry between the
two leaders threatens to intensify in the run-up to next year's presidential
election, which will pit Mr Chirac against Mr Jospin.
"In the pre-election atmosphere that now prevails in France, Chirac has
become frightened of laying himself open to criticism from Jospin," said Mr
Schild, "so he has sought to capture the moral high ground on Europe by
playing the French-interest card." Without any coherent policy on Europe, Mr
Jospin's Socialists have remained largely silent on the issue, fearing that any
outspoken policy commitment would risk damaging criticism from Mr
Chirac's Gaullists.
Against this background, German hopes that the forthcoming summit will
herald a "return to common sense" in the old alliance seem optimistic. Failure
to achieve this objective would be a big disappointment to Joschka Fischer,
Germany's francophile foreign minister. Like many previous post-war German
politicians, he continues to see close ties with France as a prerequisite for
shaping German policy on Europe.
Mr Schröder has fewer qualms. If anything, his government's misgivings about
France have won him public respect by demonstrating Germany's new-found
self-confidence on European affairs. He has also made no secret of the fact
that Berlin is intent on developing its relationship with London.</font>
