Especially in rapidly changing times, when current affairs give little cause for optimism, looking back is worthwhile. Those who disengage from day-to-day politics may miss the odd thing, yet they will also see that not everything new is relevant – or indeed actually new. Those who live in constant fear of being out of the loop run the risk of being swept away and consumed by news flashes and Twitter trends, losing sight of the big picture. Today, this risk is greater than ever before, as can be clearly seen in the case of Franco-German relations.
To illustrate, let us consider a case study: In June 1974, Karl Kaiser, who at the time had been the director of research at DGAP for a year, wrote a guest article for the French daily newspaper Le Monde on the occasion of the first meeting between the new German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and the President of France, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. ¹ Kaiser called on the two politicians to live up to their responsibilities, not least with regard to European unification.
It is uncanny how relevant this article is today, 50 years later. A few things have changed: the name of the Social Democrat chancellor is now Scholz, that of the liberal president Macron. The capital of the Federal Republic of Germany has moved from Bonn to Berlin, and the European Community has become a Union with 27 instead of nine members. But the issues are the same: France is struggling with its balance of payments, and the stability of the common economic area is at risk. The German government, in turn, feels compelled to push ahead with European integration – but it hesitates. The European community is in crisis and appears incapable of making decisions. Even the turmoil of the 1920s, which Kaiser invokes to promote a “Franco-German revival of Europe,” has reemerged as a talking point.
Plus ça change…
The lessons to be learned from looking to the past are in the eye of the beholder. Rereading the Le Monde article might move a pessimist to despair: the current chancellor could do worse than put Kaiser’s five-point plan, which he suggested to Schmidt for his first trip to Paris back in 1974, in his briefcase for his next visit to France. It seems a little sobering: has there been so little progress in 50 years?
But there is another, more optimistic interpretation. The historical urgency of Kaiser’s article still resonates today. He emphasizes the expectations that Europe’s partners have of Germany and France: “The future of the [European] Community, of the societies that have developed within it, and of Europe in general depends on Bonn or Paris. This could be their last chance.” ² The same expectations are felt today, though the circumstances are different. In 1974, these expectations were not disappointed. Schmidt and Giscard delivered, finding common solutions. The crisis was overcome, integration progressed. Is there still hope, then?
Time to Regain Altitude
Looking back is always worthwhile, whether it evokes disillusionment or inspires hope. It shows that foreign and security policy identities are quite constant and, at the same time, makes the grave historical differences between Germany and France, which continue to this day, clear. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, these differences have repeatedly disrupted the smooth surface of European unity. The German chancellor’s most important initiative since the beginning of the war, the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI), is largely based on non-European technologies – and France is not pleased about this. In the dispute over Taurus deliveries, Olaf Scholz invoked the lack of nuclear sovereignty that sets Germany apart from the United Kingdom and France – just as the chancellor did in 1974.
Examining past debates helps identify trends amid the ups and downs of day-to-day politics (with the latter clearly prevailing in recent years). Despite many great opportunities, such as the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty in 2023 and Macron’s state visit last May, the two countries have not recently achieved anything major. Instead, the meeting of the Franco-German Council of Ministers scheduled for October 2022 was canceled, a historic first. And after a Ukraine conference in Paris in February 2024, the chancellor indirectly drew red lines for the NATO allies in the dispute over Western ground troops. In response, Macron all but accused him of weakness. The conflict, conducted frequently in public, appeared dramatic.
Focusing on the Future
Two years later, hardly anyone is talking about the canceled Council of Ministers meeting anymore; the February anger has dissipated. Instead of getting stuck on these episodes, both governments should focus on long-term goals. Kaiser’s article offers some help here: As early as 1974, he identified a major obstacle to the integration of European foreign and security policy from a German perspective. Kaiser found that Germany had never understood the contradiction between the French insistence on national independence and its promotion of European cooperation without the United States. Fifty years have done little to change this; the lack of understanding persists. It is still standing in the way of Franco-German cooperation and preventing the EU from taking a united approach to Donald Trump’s second presidency.
But despite persistent incomprehension, there are many points of departure for the future. French foreign and security policy has undergone a significant shift under Emmanuel Macron in view of the war in Ukraine. This has not been sufficiently recognized and taken up in Berlin: Paris is promoting Ukraine’s NATO membership and promising “strategic solidarity” to states on its eastern flank. The commitment to the alliance is gaining in importance, and France sees opportunities in the strengthening of NATO’s “European pillar” rather than dismissing the alliance as merely a vehicle for US interests.
This French Zeitenwende is based on a generational change, its success being predicated on the modernization of Gaullism. It represents a historic opportunity for the German-French partnership and for European integration. However, it is not easy to keep sight of it amid the everyday twists and turns of politics, to reconcile it with the restructuring of German foreign and security policy, to promote and to sustain it. All these things require a certain distance. Looking back helps.
This text is a chapter from the book “Paths to the Future: Perspectives on Foreign Policy: On the 90th Birthday of Karl Kaiser” and contains no footnotes. You can access the full version including footnotes in the PDF above or via the e-book.
