The 62nd Munich Security Conference on February 12 and 13 once again saw Germany and France at odds. Emmanuel Macron defended the idea of a sovereign Europe, capable of ensuring its strategic autonomy. Friedrich Merz, faithful to the German Atlanticist tradition, promoted a path closer to America. While the Europeans have never been so weakened, with the United Kingdom gone, will the two great European powers be able together to get Europe out of the rut and move forward in terms of security?
If, to use the expression of Auguste Comte, “humanity is led more by the dead than by the living”an uncompromising look at the trajectory of France and Germany since 1949 raises doubts. Because the fog of incantations and odes to Franco-German friendship has dissipated, the reality is dark.
On the political level, in terms of Franco-German friendship, the litany of disappointments is long. Beyond the mythology of the couple, worn to the limit by French leaders, the fact is that Germany never stops looking elsewhere. In 1963 General de Gaulle had the bitter experience of this; Germany preferred the European vision carried by Jean Monnet, and with him the American administration. More recently, while France is bogged down in its difficulties, Germany has no qualms about highlighting its relationship with Giorgia Meloni’s Italy. The latter savors its revenge after for decades French leaders with eyes only for Berlin snubbed Italy.
In monetary matters, the opposition reiterated in recent days to the Eurobonds proposed by France is only the tip of a political iceberg
More fundamentally, since 1949, Germany, which only understands force, only admires and respects American power. But what about the achievements of European construction in this case? They exist. But Germany’s European commitment, well beyond a Franco-German friendship sublimated in Paris, has above all corresponded to its well-understood interests: to constitute a large market for its productions and its outlets, to gradually regain its international respectability. For several years, Germany has led the EU without hesitation and is not afraid to act unilaterally – migrants, nuclear power, a 100 billion defense fund…
Strategic differences
How can we be surprised then that in fact of agreement, on most subjects, France and Germany, neither of whom are right or wrong on everything, are opposed? In energy matters, Germany has imposed on the EU a strategy directly opposed to France’s nuclear specificity. It does not matter that Chancellor Merz admitted on January 16, 2026 that the phase-out of nuclear power was a “strategic error” : Germany continues to make life difficult for French nuclear power in the EU because it gives our industry an unbearable advantage for a German industry which is experiencing difficulties. In monetary matters, the opposition reiterated in recent days to the Eurobonds proposed by France is only the tip of a political iceberg that no one wants to see: French and Germans are disappointed by the euro and accuse each other of it!
In terms of trade, Germany, as Friedrich Merz reiterated at the Antwerp summit on competitiveness on February 12 and 13, with its 202 billion euros surplus in 2025, does not want to hear about protectionism or European preference. France, with a deficit of 69 billion, proposes the opposite. In the area of competition, which Germany controls and imposed in the treaty under American influence in 1957, the French and Germans are also in permanent opposition. We could continue.
“Germany’s vision remains profoundly Atlanticist, and incompatible with the sovereignty of France”
In this context, the opposition between France and Germany on security issues, which has crystallized in recent months on the relationship with NATO and projects like the SCAF, is not a surprise. Because in the military field too, France and Germany go from failure to failure, whether it is the Franco-German brigade or almost all of the industrial cooperation programs (tiger tank, maritime patrol aircraft, A400 M, etc.). Everything has not really worked since a specific time: the end of the 1990s. At that time, in the continuity of the catastrophic Treaty of Nice, France accepted that the strict equality of votes in the Council of the EU with Germany would give way to a weighting in which Germany would have more votes than France.
Let’s understand each other well. It is not a question of stigmatizing this or that: knowing how to tell each other truths is the condition for cooperation without ulterior motives. On certain subjects Germany is right. On many others, it is France. The point lies elsewhere: it is the inability of France and Germany to agree on military and industrial questions. For a simple reason that we will one day have to admit, without qualms, in the interest of all: Germany’s vision remains profoundly Atlanticist, and incompatible with the sovereignty of France as it is enshrined in our constitution, our history, our geopolitical choices since 1958.
*The Arvernes form a French group of senior civil servants, teachers, essayists and entrepreneurs created in 2012.
