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The German election campaign moves to Paris

2021-09-07T02:31:42.843Z


The Social Democrat Scholz and the Christian Democrat Laschet visit the Elysee Palace in full competition to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel


An official car, with a German flag, entered the front courtyard of the Elysee Palace in Paris on Monday morning.

Chancellor Angela Merkel did not get out of the vehicle, as she had done so many times over the past 16 years each time she visited the French presidents with whom she coincided in office.

Merkel will step down after the legislative elections on September 26 in Germany.

Who got out of the car this time was Olaf Scholz, German Vice Chancellor, Finance Minister, Social Democratic candidate and, according to the latest polls, favorite to succeed the Christian Democrat Chancellor.

Of course, Scholz did not have the right, like the acting heads of state and government, to the formal reception by Emmanuel Macron on the steps: he entered and left the palace alone.

More information

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It is as if, for a week, the German electoral campaign had moved to Paris and the main candidates felt the need to look for the photo with the current president Macron. On Wednesday, it will be the Christian Democratic candidate, Armin Laschet, who will visit Macron. The environmental candidate, Annalena Baerbock, third in the race, does not plan for now to make a pilgrimage to 55 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, seat of the French presidency.

“As Merkel left. Emmanuel Macron becomes a bit of the figure that the European Union embodies, something like the dean of one of the founding countries, the strong man in Europe ”, explains Marion van Renterghem, author in France of two books on chancellor and co-author of a report by the Institut Montaigne think tank on post-Merkel Germany. "On the other hand," he adds, "it seems logical, for a country like Germany, to go see the main partner."

The strength of the Franco-German engine, despite the ups and downs, explains the successive visits this week.

Beyond the photo, both Scholz and Laschet have something to talk about with the French head of state: from the economic recovery to the climate threat or the geopolitical chessboard following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan this summer.

The European Union's agenda for the coming months will be set by Macron and the next chancellor.

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The pilgrimage in campaign is not new either. Change the direction of the journey: no longer from Paris to Berlin but from Berlin to Paris. In 2017, both a young rookie Macron and the right-wing candidate François Fillon traveled to Berlin to meet with Merkel. The photo with the chancellor, de facto leader of the EU, was for the candidates to the Elysee a mark of credibility. Almost five years later, Merkel has decided not to run again and her departure leaves a void that Macron - tanned by social and economic crises, a pandemic and successive battles in Brussels - can fill.

The discussion, in Paris, is who of the three candidates to whom the polls give some probability - in this order: Scholz, Laschet and Baerbock - is more akin to the French president. The natural ally would be the liberal candidate, Christian Lindner, whose party shares a group in the European Parliament with The Republic on the Move, Macron's party, but this formation is not among those who have the option of leading a government coalition.

Van Renterghem, who over the years has studied the relationship between the French and German leaders with a magnifying glass, maintains that, of all the presidents with the Merkel he has worked - Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, in addition to Macron -, this is who it has felt closer. A Laschet Chancellor, a candidate in the Chancellor's party, would be a sign of continuity. But the same can be said of Scholz. He is a moderate Social Democrat, a member of the political family from which Macron came, who was a minister with the Socialist Hollande. And, together with his French counterpart, the conservative Bruno Le Maire, he was instrumental in approving the EU recovery plan last year, the latest example of the Franco-German engine when it works. Even a Chancellor Baerbock could tune in to Macron:in the German ecologists there is something of the Europeanism and centrism of the 2017 campaign.

"In Germany, the three candidates are more or less centrist and all very European," says Van Renterghem.

For this reason, the result of the German election should not suppose an abrupt change in the bilateral relationship.

"What is truly decisive will be the French election," he adds.

In the presidential elections next April, Macron will have as his main rival the far-right Marine Le Pen, according to all the polls.

The risk of instability comes from France.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-09-07

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