“This scene has remained because it unites the dead of both countries, we are able to bow together before their remains”

Sociologist Jean Viard looks back at the historic handshake between François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, 40 years ago, the gesture of Franco-German reconciliation, on September 22, 1984.

Today is September 22, 2024. 40 years ago, in Verdun, in the middle of a ceremony paying tribute to the dead of 14-18, François Mitterrand, the French president, and Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor, accomplished a historic gesture.

franceinfo: A handshake also called the “Verdun Gesture”, while a few months earlier, Germany had not been invited to the Normandy landing ceremonies. At that time, what did this gesture represent for the French?

Jean Viard: First, it was President Mitterrand who took the initiative. Chancellor Kohl actually looked a little surprised when the French president took his hand, and the image stuck because it was very strong. Plus, Kohl was a strong guy and Mitterrand was much smaller. We all have in our heads the image of this huge strong guy next to François Mitterrand. But it is very important for several reasons.

First, because these two men were linked to Verdun: Kohl’s grandfather had been wounded at Verdun, and François Mitterand was taken prisoner in 1939 at Verdun, so it is an important place in their personal history. Afterwards, it is true that the construction of the new relationship between France and Germany, after a century of war, terrible wars, especially the last two, is a construction that took time.

At the beginning, it started in the cathedral of Reims, between de Gaulle and Adenauer. But they were great Catholics, so Reims, it made sense the coronation of the kings of France, etc. Then, there was Willy Brandt who was a former resistance fighter and Pompidou, then Giscard d’Estaing and Helmut Schmidt who were great modernizers. They set up the European Council, they launched the European currency. It was not yet called the Euro. They were technicians. Basically, there was one who was right-wing, one left-wing, they were very humanly linked, and it must be remembered that Giscard d’Estaing was born in Germany.

So each time, the couples have a story because the Franco-German relationship is very strong. And indeed, François Mitterand and Chancellor Kohl, this scene has remained because it is facing the dead and we associate the dead of the two countries. We say: listen, we fought there, there are Germans who died, there are French who died, there were many, and it lasted a long time. Today, we are able to bow together before their remains.

And that’s why I think it has an extremely strong sense of the relationship between the two countries. A complicated relationship, because of history, because of memory. There is still obviously the whole question of the Shoah which also arises from it, but which obviously does not only concern France.

And behind the leaders who have succeeded one another, they have all sought to make a strong gesture ?

Yes, because it has become, I was going to say a tradition. It is true that since then, it is less strong, including because Europe has expanded. At the moment, we have the impression that policies are not always articulated. When the Germans put in place a policy for hashish based on communities, customers and producers, I said to myself why don’t we do it with them, rather than continuing to kill each other over drugs? There are big issues, including lifestyles where we could have moved forward, we didn’t, and right now, we are in another era. We are obsessed with immigration, people’s mobility, etc.

We remember this gesture while today Germany is strengthening its border controls. And it is true that the Franco-German couple is struggling a little, with divergences on this subject of immigration, on the economy too?

Yes, on the economy of course, because the Germans have developed a lot, it must be said, by relying effectively on the countries of Central Europe, in particular because labor was much cheaper there and energy too. So there, obviously, they had an asset of proximity that they lost with the attack on Ukraine by Russia, that’s clear.

And then, on the question of relations with immigration, we must not exaggerate either, the Germans used the law – that is to say, they have the right for six months to re-establish borders – while waiting for what was voted in Brussels last year on European defense to really be put in place. Because the real problem we have is rather the question of the borders of the European Union, so some countries are more concerned, others because they have borders, whether to the south, or whether it is actually to the east. And so there is a crisis in Germany at the moment, including which was marked by the electoral rise of the extreme right which explains this situation.