Europeans: in Dresden, Macron sounds the alarm in the face of extremes
This “was perhaps the most important, and in any case the most spectacular, moment of his visit” in Germany, notes the German weekly Die Zeit. In an atmosphere worthy of an electoral rally, alternating between French and German, President Emmanuel Macron spoke on Monday May 27 in front of several thousand people during a festival in Dresden, in the former GDR, calling on Europeans to “wake up” faced with the rise of the far right and external threats, less than two weeks before the European elections.
A “bad wind is blowing in Europe”he insisted. “Let’s look around us at the fascination with authoritarian regimes, let’s look around us at the illiberal moment we are experiencing”launched the Head of State in front of the Martyr Church of Our Lady (Frauenkirche) in Dresden, destroyed by Allied bombings in 1945 and rebuilt after German reunification.
The location of his speech was not chosen at random: “Macron spoke at the ‘Europe Day’, a youth festival bringing together thousands of participants from Saxony but also neighboring countries, Poland and the Czech Republic as well as France”, specifies the South German Zeitung.
Die Zeit she sees, in this speech to “European youth”an allusion to another historic speech given by De Gaulle in Ludwigsburg in 1962, 17 years after the Second World War in front of young Germans.
“Potentially humiliating defeats”
Monday in Dresden, “the French president tried to win the hearts of the Germans and get them to support his big plans for Europe”, summarizes the European edition of the site Politico. The French president considered that the EU was “facing an existential threat” and has it “urged to double public spending to address challenges such as the green transition, artificial intelligence and defense”reports the information site.
Politico recalls that Emmanuel Macron’s plea intervenes “two weeks before European elections which could lead to losses for pro-European forces and big victories for the far right across the continent”Macron and Scholz risking being “facing potentially humiliating defeats” while the far right is experiencing a surge in the polls.
Despite their disagreements over the war in Ukraine or European debt, the two leaders tried on Monday to signal their desire to move forward by signing a column in the British daily The Financial Times, calling for a rethink of the continent’s economic strategy to ensure its future.
A way to Die Suddeutsche Zeitung of “counter the impression of distance between Paris and Berlin and difficult personal relationships” between the French president and the German chancellor.
