France’s German Problem

Abstract

Ever since the Second World War, the Franco-German relationship has been something other than bilateral. At a minimum, it can be described as a triangle with a hidden side, the GDR; at most, it involves the European and East-West network of power relations. Bearing in mind France’s long-standing conflict with the House of Austria and later with its Prussian heirs, the way in which the French view the German problem — that is, the excruciating question of Germany’s stake and role in Europe — illuminates French perceptions and conceptions of France’s own role on the continent. French inquiries into the German Question reveal, then, at least as much about the French themselves, both elites and the public, as about Germany. France’s selective perception finds a German reality which is quite ‘contrariwise’, as Lewis Carroll would have put it. Both objective realities as well as subjective perceptions mirror French symbolism and politics, fears and models, aims and means. In all areas of differences and discrepancies between the two countries (social, economic, political and military), be they mythical or real, Germany plays an ambiguous dual role for France. On the one hand, Germany often acts as a model for France, what France itself is not but would like to be. On the other hand, when Germany exceeds the bounds of the role France envisages for it, France often uses Germany as a straw man, a focus for criticism. Often Germany can play the parts of model and straw man simultaneously.