The French and Germans know that whatever their preconceptions, they must live together. Lara Marlowe in Paris examines the chemistry between leaders of both countries
In Dublin and capitals around the world, French and German ambassadors have sent out joint invitations for January 22nd.
"On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Élysée Treaty on Franco-German Friendship and Reconciliation. . .," the fancy script reads. Like proud parents, diplomats are signalling to Europe and America that "the Franco-German couple" are renewing their vows, after 13 rocky years that almost broke their marriage.
Festivities will include a joint session of 900 French and German parliamentarians at Versailles, and the inauguration of the new French embassy near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. German guests, it's been reported in Paris, are worried about looking stylish for their snobbish hosts, all the while protesting at the cost of celebrations in these straitened times.
"The Franco-German motor" is the other cliché used to describe continental Europe's two big powers. It is perhaps more accurate, for there is something mechanical, even forced, about the institutional co-operation between ministries and associations promoting cultural exchange. If the relationship is a marriage, it is one of reason, not passion, between two countries who are each other's first economic and political partners.
Yet efforts to translate that closeness on a popular level have largely failed.
"French and German societies have turned their backs on each other," says Jacqueline Hénard, a German journalist who this month received the French Legion of Honour for promoting European integration and Franco-German relations. "Tens of thousands of French soldiers did military service in Germany. Tens of thousands of German au pairs lived in France." But despite a large number of mixed marriages - her own included - Hénard notes that French enrollment in German language classes dwindles more every year - citizens of both countries would rather learn English.
"There are still thousands of German and French cities twinned," she continues, "but they don't get beyond football club meetings." Hénard says all involved would do better to accept that there will never be a love match between the two peoples.
Only the most politically incorrect Frenchmen still express a grudge for the horrors of the second World War. But its legacy haunts both peoples, even if diplomats and academics rarely mention the war in conversation.
Ask any Frenchman in the street about the Élysée Treaty and you draw a blank; ask him about Franco-German relations and he'll tell you that he watched the new film about the Resistance hero Jean Moulin on the leading television station, TF1, this month - complete with scenes of the Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie torturing the French hero. Newstands around Paris advertise the current issue of L'Histoire magazine, showing Hitler against a background of swastikas. "Hitler, Nazism and the Germans," says the bold typeface.
In France, two history professors of German Jewish origin, Joseph Rovan and Alfred Grosser, helped to foster the French desire for reconciliation after the war.
"We will have the Germany that we deserve", Rovan wrote in the intellectual review Esprit in December 1946. "Rovan thought the evolution of Germany after the defeat would depend largely on France's attitude towards Germany," explains Marc-Olivier Padis, editor-in-chief of Esprit today.
"After 1918, the occupation of the Rhineland and the heavy indemnities under the Versailles Treaty thwarted the democratisation of Germany. Rovan didn't want France to make the same mistake again. He knew it was important to avoid a vengeful attitude."
In the 1960s and 1970s, friendship between Gen Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, helped consolidate reconciliation.
"The chemistry was less good between Francois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl," Padis notes. "Under [President Jacques] Chirac and [the Chancellor, Mr Gerhard] Schröder, it's completely finished."
As the post-war generation of European statesmen like Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman disappeared, the sense of urgency faded from Franco-German relations.
"In the Mitterrand period, relations were based on guilt and a sort of blackmail - 'the historic responsibility of Germany'," Padis explains. "With Schröder, that doesn't work any more. At the same time, France no longer feels it's taking a brilliant initiative by reintroducing Germany to the concert of nations. It was a generous gesture that only France could make, but it petered out by the mid-1980s."
The reunification of Germany began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and culminated in October 1990. At the time, France was preoccupied with bicentennial celebrations and the rise of the Islamic fundamentalism in Algeria.
Jacques Delors, then president of the European Commission, was the only French politician of stature to attend the reunification ceremony. France's attitude was best summed up by the writer Francois Mauriac, who said: "I like Germany so much that I want there to be two of them."
With reunification, the personality, character and physical attributes of the German spouse changed completely. "It provoked a certain perplexity on the part of the French," says a French diplomat. "We had to get used to the new Germany. It's been a difficult period, but now we realise that reunification makes it easier to build Europe."
Numerous quarrels marred the 1990s. When the former Yugoslavia disintegrated, Germany supported Croatian independence, while France was perceived to be pro-Serb. France's stubborn defence of the Common Agricultural Policy poisoned the March 1999 European Summit in Berlin, and the Nice Summit in December 2000.
Domestic politics in both countries further complicated matters. The Germans were exasperated by the two-headed "cohabitation" between Chirac and the Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, between 1997 and 2002. Paris was hurt by Schröder's flirtation with Tony Blair, and German sources say Schröder is annoyed by Chirac's ogling his attractive wife, Doris.
"There was a chill between the Chancellory and the Élysée," says Hugues Jardel, a French television producer and correspondent who has just completed a two-year stint with the Franco-German television station, Arte. Ironically, he continues, "Chirac and Schröder resemble each other. Both are great seducers, of women, of the public. Both are political animals who love plunging into the crowd."
Relations began to improve in the autumn, when Chirac rescued Schröder from the unilateral corner he'd painted himself into, by condemning the idea of a UN resolution that would give Washington a "loaded gun" in the Iraq crisis. In October, the two announced a surprise agreement on CAP funding. They've since presented several joint contributions to the convention that is drafting a European constitution.
The Franco-German proposal for a dual presidency of the EU this week was the most recent example of what the French diplomat says is now entrenched practice.
In 10 years as a specialist in bilateral relations, he has never felt so optimistic.
"At the highest level, our leaders realise they must reach compromise quickly on all issues. On enlargement and in the convention, we're in it together for the long haul."