Headlines: Paris and Berlin hand in hand

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By: Frédéric Couteau Follow

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After weeks of delay and controversy, France and Germany finally agreed yesterday in favor of the creation of a European stimulus fund endowed with 500 billion euros and intended to help the regions, the sectors and countries hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis.

A real "  leap forward  ", exclaims Liberation . "  Under the aegis of this " Franco-German couple "- which we said did not exist -, the Union reaffirms its will to act jointly against the crisis and, above all, it gives to this reiterated will its sounding and stumbling base. ( …) Beyond the technical details, this proposal is a date in the history of the Union, rejoices again Liberation  : for the first time, it is a massive transfer of resources from the strongest economies in favor of the most affected regions or countries . Certainly , tempers the newspaper,we still have to overcome the reluctance of certain northern countries. Certainly, it will be necessary to verify that all of this benefits, as it is announced, from a revival of ecological content. But finally, it is the opposite of inaction, launches Liberation. Above all, it is a leap forward in integration that we considered completely impossible three months ago.  "

Merkel took the plunge

For La Croix , “  this agreement marks a departure from the traditional position of Germany. It argued that the EU was not designed as a transfer union - a political entity where the wealthiest states make up for the budget shortfalls of the less fortunate. Angela Merkel remained adamant during the Greek crisis. This time, the Chancellor took the plunge, points to La Croix, faced with the vertiginous risk of a disintegration of the Union under the effects of the pandemic and the economic shock created by confinement. (…) Progress is important. The European Commission is already ready for it. It will be necessary to obtain the unanimity of the Twenty-Seven during negotiations which will be difficult in Brussels and Berlin. The Franco-German engine, in any case , concludes La Croix , has found its reason for being.  "

Shark Macron ?

For Le Figaro , this is "  a European success useful to the French president  ": "  with this Franco-German agreement on the possibility of a common debt of the European Union, Emmanuel Macron made it a nightmare economic leverage of his European dream. (…) The return of the old Franco-German couple, even for a marriage of reason, is a pledge of credibility, believes the newspaper, as it has always been the prerequisite for any European advance. Their agreement does not make everything possible, but without their agreement, nothing would be. For Macron, a European success can also , Le Figaro points out, be a prerequisite for any hope of national reconquest.  "

Piccoli : the most impressive career in French cinema

The other big topic of the day is the disappearance of Michel Piccoli ...

"  Goodbye M. Piccoli  ", says Le Parisien on the front page. "  Michel Piccoli died on May 12 in the arms of his wife Ludivine and his young children Inord and Missia, following a stroke,  " his family soberly said yesterday. "  Without a doubt, he goes with the most impressive career in French cinema, who has lent his majestic form, his bushy eyebrows, his broad forehead and his haunting voice to the films of Jean-Luc Godard, Raoul Ruiz, Nanni Moretti , Jean-Pierre Melville, Alain Resnais, Jean Renoir, Luis Buñuel, Leos Carax, Claude Sautet, Jacques Demy and even Alfred Hitchcock in L'Etau , filmed in English in 1969. (…) Michel Piccoli leaves behind no less than 176 films and 49 plays ...  »

"Nothing bothered him like ease"

Liberation devotes its entire opening dossier, no less than 8 pages, to this sacred monster of French cinema. "  He had the normalcy of a good family uncle and the charisma of a calculating prince," writes Liberation, "as genial in his casualness as in his love impulse, the embodiment of bourgeois pangs at Sautet and the dynamizer of good manners at Ferreri, at easy, jump and run, chaining Mauvais Sang by Leos Carax and Rumba by Roger Hanin, elixir and turnip. "The directors delegate their secrets to me", he liked to say in a beautiful formula where the actor is both black box and machine for decryption (…). "

"  Nothing that can be played seemed foreign to Piccoli , points for his part Le Figaro, perhaps because nothing surprised him, in the man, and that he had definitively accepted his infinite oddity by becoming an actor . (…) And nothing bothered him like ease. Exploit the vein that works, no. "As soon as I saw a recipe I liked, it made me want to change it," he said. Curiosity has always led him. She has given her life a mixture of fantasy and requirement that does not lack panache.  "

Finally, the reaction of the one who was his partner in Le Mépris de Godard , Brigitte Bardot: “  He had talent, humor, and he loved my buttocks. The last spray of the New Wave carried it leaving me alone on the abandoned beach.  "

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• Newspaper
• France
• Germany
• Emmanuel Macron
• Angela Merkel