Macron and Merkel renew their vows

“GENTLEMEN, NEVER forget that for France there can be no other alternative but friendship with Germany.” Half a century after Charles de Gaulle uttered these words to his ministers, the relationship between France and Germany remains the most important in Europe: an emblem of peace and reconciliation, and the foundation stone of European integration.

To renew and strengthen this essential bond, President Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, will meet on January 22nd in the German border town of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle in French), where they will sign a 16-page treaty. The ceremony takes place 56 years to the day after de Gaulle and his West German counterpart, Konrad Adenauer, met at the presidential palace in Paris to sign the Elysée treaty, capping the two countries’ move from Erbfeinde (hereditary foes) to partners in what a later West German chancellor would call the entente élémentaire.