Self-inflicted debacle, failed poker move, the German press was not very kind this Monday towards Emmanuel Macron, welcomed with great fanfare a few weeks ago in the country. Beyond the « triomphe » of the RN, it’s the strategy “incomprehensible” of the French head of state who is appealing to those across the Rhine. “The country of Enlightenment, of human rights, of cosmopolitanism is drifting to the right as never before – and perhaps towards obscurantism, withdrawal into oneself, xenophobia,” regrets the center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, for which all this “is Macron’s failure and fault”a president “which opened the door wide to the extreme right”.
Even your acerbic tone on the conservative newspaper side Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “A president who unnecessarily risks his majority in Parliament will certainly not be able to hope for a graceful entry in the history books. (…) France could be absent from the EU and NATO for years. That would please Moscow,” dreads this daily routine.
“A warning to us all”
As usual, the German government is limiting its comments to a minimum on an election whose outcome is still uncertain. “Germany and France bear a special responsibility for our common European home. The fact that a far-right party is at the top cannot leave us unmoved,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock reacted soberly.
Also succinct comment from the Secretary General of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), Carsten Linnemann, for whom a victory for the RN “would fundamentally change the Franco-German relationship”. “This is a warning to all of us,” says the co-president of the Social Democratic Party, Saskia Esken. “Europe’s cohesion is in danger (…) Politicians must respond to people’s problems,” she believes.
Can Germany learn from the French experience, two months before important elections in the East, where the far-right AfD party could also come out on top? ” Absolutely “, says Sandra Weeser, federal MP for the liberal FDP party. “In France, the RN grew up on the major theme of immigration. In our country too, the AfD made it its central theme. It is therefore a warning. The parties in power must solve the country’s problems. “, believes this liberal elected official. “Whatever the results of the ballot boxes on July 7, contacts between the two countries will continue, but will they be as extensive? Will the Franco-German parliamentary assembly still be able to serve as a driving force between the two countries and for Europe?”.
In this context, only the far-right Alternative for Germany party is happy about the situation in France. And this, despite its recent divorce from Marine Le Pen’s party.
Find the results of the first round of the 2024 legislative elections, municipality by municipality
