This week, we fly across the Rhine and analyze how Angela Merkel’s powerful Germany has given way to a timid country plagued by numerous divisions. With Charles Haquet, editor-in-chief of the World service of L’Express and Christophe Bourdoiseau, correspondent in Berlin.
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The team: Charlotte Baris (presentation), Mathias Penguilly (writing), Jules Krot (editing and production).
Music and dressing: Emmanuel Herschon / Studio Torrent
Image credits: BERND VON JUTRCZENKA / DPA / AFP
Logo: Anne-Laure Chapelain / Benjamin Chazal
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Charlotte Baris: When we think of Germany, the images that come to mind are generally positive. A stable and efficient economy, a political regime which favors compromise, and a very significant capacity for influence on the European scene. All these elements, it can be said, have long been embodied by a single person: Chancellor Angela Merkel, who governed the country between 2005 and 2021.
But since she left her place to Olaf Scholz, three years ago now, setbacks have been piling up in Germany. Economic recession, dilapidated infrastructure, historic breakthrough of one of the most radical far-right parties in the world… So many grains of sand that have come to seize up the well-oiled machine of our neighbors across the Rhine.
At L’Express, we have been observing and deciphering what is happening in Berlin for a while. And these days, it will not have escaped your notice that Germany is receiving a distinguished guest: President Emmanuel Macron. And it is therefore thanks to this diplomatic visit that we decided to dedicate part of the magazine this week to Germany.
For further
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