Franco-German couple: “We must not let the gaps grow from which China and Russia take advantage”

Beautiful speeches, warm embraces, “Dear Emmanuel” and “Dear Olaf”do you want some here… The 60^e anniversary of the Elysée Treaty – signed in 1963, eighteen years after the end of the Second World War, by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and French President Charles de Gaulle – was celebrated with great fanfare at the Sorbonne this Sunday, January 22.

It was for Paris and Berlin to show that the Franco-German couple is still a driving force on the European scene. Since Olaf Scholz moved to the Chancellery a little over a year ago, the subjects of anger have multiplied and the war in Ukraine has only made the differences between the two countries even more visible. .

“Der Spiegel”, the most widely read news weekly across the Rhine, and “l’Obs” asked Laurence Boone, Secretary of State for Europe, and her German counterpart, Anna Lührmann, Deputy Minister for of European Affairs and Climate, to take stock of this day and the state of relations between their two countries. The meeting took place in the premises of Sciences-Po Paris, following a conference on the future of Franco-German collaboration organized in partnership with the Körber-Stiftung foundation.

The ceremony of the 60^e anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, coupled with the holding of the 23^e council of ministers common to the two countries – canceled in 2022 – was to show how strong the Franco-German couple remains. But that does not