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ANGELA MERKEL

French-German relations ‘will get worse’: Ex-PM

France's former Prime Minister and current centre-right deputy François Fillon said on Friday he had "rarely seen relations so bad" between France and Germany, and he feared they could get even worse after Germany's next elections.

French-German relations 'will get worse': Ex-PM
File photo: Robin Hood/Flickr

Former French prime minister Francois Fillon said Friday he feared ties with Berlin would worsen after Germany's general election in September, lamenting they had already hit a low.

"We've rarely seen relations so bad" between France and Germany, said Fillon, who is now an opposition conservative deputy, on a visit to Berlin.

The comments marked a rare public shot across the bows at Socialist President Francois Hollande by a French official while abroad.

"My fear is that after the German election the situation will harden considerably," referring to the September 22 poll in which conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking a third term.

"For the moment everyone is in a holding pattern, including the markets, and once the issue of the election is resolved, we will be faced with reality, meaning 'Are we respecting the stability pact? Are we making an effort on competitiveness?'" Fillon said.

Fillon, who met with German officials including Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, said that his interlocutors in Berlin had expressed concerns about the state of relations, the health of the French economy and the risk of rising anti-German sentiment in France.

"You have… a French president who is waiting for the fall of Ms Merkel, telling himself that there is a small chance after the German elections of getting a quite significant change in the economic orientation of Germany and Europe," he said.

"I think this is a grave error," he said, adding "everything is in the process of growing apart between France and Germany".

Fillon served under former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who famously had such a close working relationship with Merkel that they won the joint moniker "Merkozy".

The ex-prime minister asserted that Hollande had never forgiven Merkel for backing Sarkozy during the French presidential election campaign last year, poisoning relations between them.

Hollande campaigned on a pledge to combat what he called Merkel's austerity-driven approach to the eurozone crisis, favouring a model of increased public spending to spur economic growth.

Merkel has resisted such calls, saying that only expansion based on budgetary discipline will be sustainable.

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POLITICS

Sleep, seaside, potato soup: What will Merkel do next?

 After 16 years in charge of Europe's biggest economy, the first thing Angela Merkel wants to do when she retires from politics is take "a little nap". But what about after that?

Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel briefly closes her eyes and smiles at a 2018 press conference in Berlin.
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel briefly closes her eyes at a 2018 press conference in Berlin. Aside from plans to take "a little nap" after retiring this week, she hasn't given much away about what she might do next. Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP

The veteran chancellor has been tight-lipped about what she will do after handing over the reins to her successor Olaf Scholz on December 8th.

During her four terms in office, 67-year-old Merkel was often described as the most powerful woman in the world — but she hinted recently that she will not miss being in charge.

“I will understand very quickly that all this is now someone else’s responsibility. And I think I’m going to like that situation a lot,” she said during a trip to Washington this summer.

Famous for her stamina and her ability to remain fresh after all-night meetings, Merkel once said she can store sleep like a camel stores water.

But when asked about her retirement in Washington, she replied: “Maybe I’ll try to read something, then my eyes will start to close because I’m tired, so I’ll take a little nap, and then we’ll see where I show up.”

READ ALSO: ‘Eternal’ chancellor: Germany’s Merkel to hand over power
READ ALSO: The Merkel-Raute: How a hand gesture became a brand

‘See what happens’
First elected as an MP in 1990, just after German reunification, Merkel recently suggested she had never had time to stop and reflect on what else she might like to do.

“I have never had a normal working day and… I have naturally stopped asking myself what interests me most outside politics,” she told an audience during a joint interview with Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

“As I have reached the age of 67, I don’t have an infinite amount of time left. This means that I want to think carefully about what I want to do in the next phase of my life,” she said.

“Do I want to write, do I want to speak, do I want to go hiking, do I want to stay at home, do I want to see the world? I’ve decided to just do nothing to begin with and see what happens.”

Merkel’s predecessors have not stayed quiet for long. Helmut Schmidt, who left the chancellery in 1982, became co-editor of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and a popular commentator on political life.

Helmut Kohl set up his own consultancy firm and Gerhard Schroeder became a lobbyist, taking a controversial position as chairman of the board of the Russian oil giant Rosneft.

German writer David Safier has imagined a more eccentric future for Merkel, penning a crime novel called Miss Merkel: Mord in der Uckermark  that sees her tempted out of retirement to investigate a mysterious murder.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel forms her trademark hand gesture, the so-called “Merkel-Raute” (known in English as the Merkel rhombus, Merkel diamond or Triangle of Power). (Photo by Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP)
 

Planting vegetables
Merkel may wish to spend more time with her husband Joachim Sauer in Hohenwalde, near Templin in the former East Germany where she grew up, and where she has a holiday home that she retreats to when she’s weary.

Among the leisure activities she may undertake there is vegetable, and especially, potato planting, something that she once told Bunte magazine in an interview in 2013 that she enjoyed doing.

She is also known to be a fan of the volcanic island of D’Ischia, especially the remote seaside village of Sant’Angelo.

Merkel was captured on a smartphone video this week browsing the footwear in a Berlin sportswear store, leading to speculation that she may be planning something active.

Or the former scientist could embark on a speaking tour of the countless universities from Seoul to Tel Aviv that have awarded her honorary doctorates.

Merkel is set to receive a monthly pension of around 15,000 euros ($16,900) in her retirement, according to a calculation by the German Taxpayers’ Association.

But she has never been one for lavish spending, living in a fourth-floor apartment in Berlin and often doing her own grocery shopping.

In 2014, she even took Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to her favourite supermarket in Berlin after a bilateral meeting.

So perhaps she will simply spend some quiet nights in sipping her beloved white wine and whipping up the dish she once declared as her favourite, a “really good potato soup”.

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