Don’t be fooled by the image of their last warm handshake on the steps of the Elysée at the end of February. Between Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, it would rather be the beginning of a “dangerous ice age”, points out the daily Bild, like the entire German press. “The main engine of Europe? For decades, the standard answer from any European diplomat has been: the Franco-German engine. It rarely works like clockwork. But it has rarely been as mistreated as today”, details the tabloid.
At issue: growing disagreements on the Ukrainian issue, including the recent quarrel over the sending of “ground troops” to Ukraine – mentioned by Paris then rejected outright by Berlin. “Olaf Scholz’s words are often spoken late and in a whisper, underlines the South German Zeitung. We are all the more struck by the audacity with which the Chancellor has just assured that he would under no circumstances send German soldiers to Ukraine.”
The complicated relationship between the two men is not new. “This is only the latest snag in Franco-German relations,” recalls Die Welt. France and Germany argue over plans for joint fighter planes and tanks. They are mutually blocking the delivery of arms to Ukraine at European level. Relations are broken, precisely at a time when the future of NATO solidarity in security policy is being called into question more sharply than ever by Donald Trump.
This cacophony has everything to please Vladimir Putin. “In the Kremlin, they are probably popping the Crimean champagne corks,” scathes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Macron and Scholz, despite different temperaments and political traditions in their respective countries, must finally come together if they want to stop Putin, adds the Frankfurt daily. The latter might otherwise believe that he has not seen them days as two paper tigers who fight more among themselves than against him.”