The management of the coronavirus epidemic seemed to have separated them, but France and Germany are more united than ever. In the aftermath of the announcement of a major aid plan of 500 billion euros, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel embarks on the rescue of Europe.
Every day his Franco-German. Sunday was the commemoration of the battle waged and lost by De Gaulle in 1940 against the German enemy. And Monday, surprise: a joint Macron-Merkel conference.
Yes, a real surprise, indeed, since we thought that a strong tension had settled between France and Germany for two months, around the management of the consequences of the coronavirus crisis.
Germany, for example, had massively released aid to its companies (thanks to its insolent budgetary health), which risked creating a very worrying distortion for the future in favor of its industry. France, for its part, had brought out its dream of pooling debts, hoping that healthy countries (follow my look) would agree to go into debt for poorly managed countries. A form of debt socialism.
What Germany had always refused, and which Angela Merkel ended up accepting.
In fact, the agreement between her and Emmanuel Macron is a little different. It relates, not to past debts, those which have been accumulated by lax countries (here again, follow my gaze), but to future debts, those which will be constituted by Europe specifically to combat the effects of this a crisis for which no one is responsible, good or bad manager, that of the coronavirus.
Here, for the first time in its history, Europe has taken this symbolic step: raising money on behalf of everyone to help a few. It really is a very important, very symbolic moment.
And this tension between the two countries, it has disappeared?
In fact, Emmanuel Macron stressed yesterday that it was this tension that made it possible to push the dialogue beyond the ordinary. A "fertile tension" he confided in a small committee. What is certain is that the head of state did a good job.
First, he is undoubtedly the maneuver for the revival of the famous Franco-German engine. And we know how important this European dimension is in its political positioning. In addition, (why deprive yourself?) He pointed out yesterday that if Angela Merkel agreed to endorse this debt project that she had always refused until then, and to defend it with her reluctant political opinion, it is well because France had found the path of reform and competitiveness. In short, part of his credibility.
An argument for internal political use, I suppose.
Of course. We are still waiting for what will be the political project of Emmanuel Macron for the end of the crisis. But we can already see what his European project will be, and he is fairly widely applauded. And in building its positioning for "the day after", as we say, going through the Europe box is certainly a political move of great skill.