French Complain of Germany's 'Political Infidelity'
"Thirty years of infidelity" is how France's current affairs magazine Marianne describes Germany's relationship with France. An issue this month was devoted to how Germany has been "fleecing France" for years.
Marianne isn't alone in fulminating against Germany. French frustrations with Germany appear to be mounting, judging by French media criticism of its European neighbor. Conservative magazine, Valuers Actuelles, last month dubbed Germany the "tyrant of Europe" and accused Berlin of always putting its own interests above those of the European Union as a whole. It identified Germany as the real driver behind the signing in December of an EU-China agreement that caused unease in Washington and attracted widespread criticism in France.
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It is all a far cry from January 2019, when French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel signed a friendship treaty in Aachen, with the two leaders saying they would deepen cooperation in foreign affairs, defense, development and security. [...]
French officials also express privately their frustration with their irritation focused on Germany's reluctance to engage in military interventions or even consider doing so.
- "German reticence is less and less accepted and understood," according to analyst Paul Maurice of the French Institute of International Relations. "There are many reasons, including historical ones, for Germany's unease about military deployments abroad," he wrote in a recent report.
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>> Read the whole article on VOA <<
>> Read Paul Maurice's Note : « Circumstantial Pacifism: Political Parties and the Participation of the Bundeswehr in Foreign Operations », Notes du Cerfa, No. 160, April 2021