Transfer of Meaning
Return of Germans to Versailles makes history
In 1871 a victorious Bismarck travelled to the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles to declare the founding of modern Germany. In 1919, the Allies met there to decide Germany's post-war fate.
This month Versailles will ring again to German voices when the entire Bundestag arrives to mark the 40th anniversary of the Franco-German treaty signed in 1963 by Adenauer and de Gaulle. It should be a spectacular occasion. President Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder will address a joint assembly of the French and German parliaments.
Just before the signing of the Elysée Treaty, de Gaulle described France and Germany as two exhausted wrestlers, forced to lean on each other. The treaty marked the official end of French wariness towards its neighbour and the start of Franco-German intimacy in Europe.
Economically, France and Germany find themselves in similar straits again. The European Union reprimanded them both this week for running up excessive deficits and threatening the Stability and Growth Pact. But rather than leaning on each other, they appear to be seeking other support.
The Franco-German motor was fine as long as it controlled the machine around it, the EU. But now there are too many other moving parts: Britain, a resurgent Spain, the glut of countries to the east and, of course, America breathing down everyone's neck. A few years ago a Franco-German joint parliamentary assembly in Versailles might have given Britain and the rest of Europe the shivers. Not any more. Even if they wanted to, France and Germany are no longer in a position to whistle their tune and expect to be followed. M Chirac, armed with a large parliamentary majority, can smell blood on the domestically weak Mr Schröder. He sees nothing to be gained from attaching himself to the downwardly mobile Germans.
M Chirac has also lost faith in the capacity of EU institutions to offer a counterweight to America. French diplomats were delighted by Germany's ejection from the debate on Iraq after Mr Schröder and his ministers criticised President George W Bush.
This only confirmed M Chirac's belief that France is better off making its own foreign policy. Next week he will hold peace talks in Paris between government and rebel leaders of the Ivory Coast. And he still believes France offers the only credible opposition to America on Iraq. On the expansion of the EU, Germany is engaged and supportive, but France is disinterested, verging on hostile.
At the Nice Summit in 2000, M Chirac insisted that Germany, despite its larger population, must retain voting parity with France on the Council of Ministers. He told the Germans that their voting weight was an irrevocable condition of the 1963 treaty, and a price Germany must pay for the three wars it had instigated against France since 1870. The Germans were livid.
At the forthcoming summit M Chirac might be advised to let
the gathering's setting speak for itself.
1. Warum ist Versailles so bedeutend für Frankreich und Deutschland ?
2. Was für eine Rolle hat der Elysée Vertrag gespielt ?
3. Welche politische Unterschiede gibt es zwischen Frankreich und Deutschland nach dem Journalist ?
4. Warum war Deutschland so böse in Nizza ?
5. Wie wichtig ist die Vergangenheit für das moderne Deutschland ?