French-German friendship

There was a picture of François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl hand in hand, in the ossuary of Douaumont, France, built in homage to the deaths of the battle of Verdun, on September 22nd, 1984. This picture became the symbol of the French-German reconciliation. There will be now Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, on November 11th, 2009, in Paris. It is indeed the first time that a German leader of the government participated beside a French president in the remembrance of the armistice of the war of 1914-1918. Two days after having celebrated in Berlin twenty years of the fall of the Wall, Nicolas Sarkozy welcomes the German chancellor in Paris on Wednesday to celebrate the end of the Great War, during a ceremony conceived as a new episode of the French-German friendship. Friendship that Sarkozy qualified, in front of Merkel, Place de l’Etoile, as "treasure", wishing a "narrower association" of the politics of their two countries, " The friendship of Germany and France is a treasure. We owe to our relatives, who suffered so much, to make everything possible to protect and make big this treasure ", said the Head of State, "We owe it to all the peoples of the world". Angela Merkel had almost the same speech, and qualified the "reconciliation" and the French-German "friendship" as "a present ". She added: "the freedom on the European continent is a miracle, and we know very well how much it cost. " " This strength of the reconciliation allows us to face new challenges and to assume our responsibilities ", said Merkel. In the morning, the French President welcomes the Chancellor at the Elysee, where both of them joined the Arc de Triomphe. They have, together with a detachment of the French-German brigade and the pupils-officers of both armies, revive the flame of the grave of the unknown soldier and pronounce a short speech. Exceptional fact, the German hymn was played under the Arc de Triomphe. After the Marseillaise, the Choir of the French Army intoned Deutschlandlied, while Sarkozy and Merkel stayed in front of the grave of the unknown soldier. After the death last year of the last French “poilu” at the age of 110, Nicolas Sarkozy wished to make of November 11th, 2009 "one day of French-German reconciliation, to build a shared future". After difficult debuts, the relation between Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel knows since a few months a "honeymoon", which is translated by a multitude of common diplomatic initiatives. Both leaders should announce new initiatives to dope the French-German couple in January, at the occasion of the anniversary of the treaty of the Elysee signed in 1963 by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer.