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FRANCE AND GERMANY

France’s Macron makes plea to defend democracy on German state visit

Emmanuel Macron arrived Sunday in Berlin on the first state visit to Germany by a French president in a quarter century, bringing a plea to defend democracy against nationalism at upcoming European elections.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier L) and French President Emmanuel Macron attend a debate as part of the Festival of Democracy on May 26, 2024 in Berlin. The French president is on a three-day state visit to Germany.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier L) and French President Emmanuel Macron attend a debate as part of the Festival of Democracy on May 26, 2024 in Berlin. The French president is on a three-day state visit to Germany. (Photo by JENS SCHLUETER / AFP)

Macron made an appearance at a democracy festival his first stop, where, accompanied by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, he warned of a “form of fascination for authoritarianism which is growing” in the two major EU nations.

“We forget too often that it’s a fight” to protect democracy, Macron said.

If the nationalists had been in power in Europe in the last years, “history would not have been the same”, he said, pointing to decisions on the coronavirus pandemic or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We need an alliance of democrats in Europe,” said Steinmeier.

Macron “has rightly pointed out that the conditions today before the European elections is different from the previous election, a lot has happened”.

‘Europe is mortal’

The trip comes two weeks ahead of European elections where polls show, in a major potential embarrassment for Macron, that his coalition is trailing well behind the far right and may struggle to even reach third place.

In Germany too, all three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition are polling behind the far-right AfD in surveys, despite a series of scandals embroiling the anti-immigration party.

In a keynote address on foreign policy last month, Macron issued a dire warning about the threats to Europe in a changing world in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“Our Europe, today, is mortal and it can die,” Macron said. “It can die and this depends only on our choices.”

Ramping up his warning in Berlin, Macron urged Europeans “to go vote for the party that we back and a party that defends Europe”.

After the talks with Steinmeier in Berlin on Sunday, Macron is due to bring his message to Dresden in the former East German Saxony state, where the AfD has a strong supporter base.

Tuesday sees Macron in the western German city of Munster and later in Meseberg, outside Berlin, for talks with Scholz and a Franco-German joint cabinet meeting.

READ ALSO: European elections: The 5 numbers you need to understand the EU

‘Awkward’

Beyond making joint calls for the European elections, Macron’s three-day visit will seek to emphasise the historic importance of the post-war relationship between the two key EU states, as France next month commemorates 80 years since the D-Day landings that marked the beginning of the end of German World War II occupation.

But all has not been smooth in a relationship often seen as the engine of the EU, and German officials said to be uneasy at times about his often-theatrical style of foreign policy.

In a question-and-answer session on social media with young people this month, Macron enlisted help from Scholz when asked if the Franco-German “couple” was still working.

“Hello dear friends, long live French-German friendship!” Scholz said in French in a video on Macron’s X feed. “Thank you Olaf! I very much agree with you,” Macron replied in heavily accented German.

Officials from both sides are at pains to emphasise that while there are periodic tensions on specific issues, the fundamental basis of the relationship remains sound.

But Macron’s refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine sparked an unusually acidic response from Scholz that Germany had no such plans. Germany also does not share Macron’s enthusiasm for a European strategic autonomy less dependent on the United States.

“The Franco-German relationship is about disagreeing and trying to find ways of compromise,” said Helene Miard-Delacroix, specialist in German history at the Sorbonne university in Paris.

Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at risk analysis firm Eurasia Group, said relations between France and Germany “remain awkward, verging on hostile”.

“On the big issues, little progress should be expected,” he said on X.

While Macron is a frequent visitor to Berlin, the trip is the first state visit in 24 years following a trip by Jacques Chirac in 2000 and the sixth since the first post-war state visit by Charles de Gaulle in 1962.

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JOHN LICHFIELD

OPINION: When the mask slips, Le Pen’s party reveals its fundamental racism

The French far-right party's new leader is smooth, handsome and plausible - writes John Lichfield - but when the mask slips we see that the party's fundamental ideology remains deeply racist.

OPINION: When the mask slips, Le Pen's party reveals its fundamental racism

The talented Monsieur Bardella wishes you well.

He wishes the poor well and he wishes the wealthy well. He wishes the old well and he wishes the young well. He wishes the Right well and he wishes the Left well.

His programme is partly populist Left, partly populist Right and now, bizarrely, includes several ideas copy-pasted from Macronism (formerly known as the blood-sucking elite).

Bardella is like a politician invented by AI: plausible to the point of being unctuous; all things to all people (except the brown or black ones); gently brutal-looking; programmed with information and disinformation that he can seamlessly access (unlike Marine Le Pen).

Is he possibly a robot?

Bardella’ performance in the first TV debate of this cursed election was impressive.

But the mask did slip a couple of times.

He accidentally admitted that the Rassemblement National’s alternative to the Macron pension reform – headline “retirement at 60 (for some)” –  would mean many some other people retiring at 66 or 67. Whoops.

Bardella’s face at that moment was like that of a 12-year-old caught cheating at cards. Maybe, he is not a robot after all.

The Prime ministerial candidate of the Far Right Rassemblement National also refused to give any credit to the contribution to French life made by immigrants and the sons and daughters of immigrants.

Not the footballers, not the nurses, not the doctors, not the cleaners, not the scientists. Not even his Italian grandparents nor his Algerian great grand-parent.

The PM Gabriel Attal tried to push him on this point; so did the Left wing representative Manuel Bompard (not a man I like but a spokesman who defended his camp well).

Bardella refused to say a good word in favour of brown or black French people. He refused to acknowledge the ideological – and fundamentally – racist basis for the RN’s plans to exclude “dual nationals” from some senior government jobs.

Explained: the far-right’s plan to ban dual-nationals from certain jobs 

In practise that will means marginalising Franco-Algerians or Franco-Moroccans, not Franco-Germans or Franco-Luxembourgers. There is no practical justification for this policy. It is a way of signalling that, if the RN came to power, the single, indivisible French Republic will end. There will be the white French people and there will be the rest.

Already, the prospect of the Far Right winning a majority in parliament over the next two weekends has produced a minor explosion of racist remarks in social media and on the street.   

Are all the 33-35 percent of French voters prepared to vote for Bardella and Le Pen racists? No, of course, they are not.

But race – and an exaggerated sense of threat to French identity – are an important part of this extraordinary mud-slide of support for the Far Right in the opinion polls.

READ ALSO: What is ‘national preference’ and how would it hurt foreigners in France?

There is also something else at work which is near-hysterical and difficult to combat. In the minds of many French voters, the Far Right has become the “antidote to Macronism”, the opposite to Emmanuel Macron and therefore “a good thing”.

It is as if many French people – including many who should know better including the editors of Le Figaro – have turned a blind eye to the history of Lepennism and much of its present.

Anything said to point out the residual racism of the RN and the anti-European charlatanry of its economic programme  reinforces, rather than weakens their choice. Bardella and Le Pen are the opposite of all that has gone before. Bring it on.

This is partly Emmanuel Macron’s fault. He promised to be a revolutionary and different kind of politician. He turned out to be another mainstream reformer. He made no effort to build a grassroots, political  movement. He is given no credit for his successes (lower unemployment, cleaner air). He has become hated beyond all logic or reason but that, itself, is a calamitous failure for a politician.

By sweeping away what remained of the failed centre-right in and centre-left in 2017 Macron created a new political duality of Centre v  Far Right. This served him well electorally through two presidential elections.

But the French are a people devoted to regular “alternance” ie detesting and frequently booting out their leaders. For many previously moderate voters, the only gut-satisfying alternative to the irrationally detested centre is now a cosmetically softened Far Right.

This is an absurd and unhealthy situation which will do France no good and could cause much permanent harm. Will the Far Right win a majority on July 7th?

The opinion polls suggest not. But they are drifting gradually in Bardella’s direction.

In June 2016, the UK took careful aim and shot itself in the foot. I fear that France may be about to shoot itself in the heart and the head.

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