In an unscripted moment, standing behind their podiums, the two leaders shared a smile that turned into a polite laugh. That was how Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz responded to a journalist’s question about whether Italy was on its way to replacing France as Berlin’s preferred partner, at the signing of an Italian-German “action plan” in Rome on Friday, January 23. They were quick to dispel any such notion. “There is no hierarchy in relationships, in Germany,” replied the German leader, who was accompanied by a large delegation of ministers and business leaders, while Meloni assured she did not “want to take anyone’s place.”
Paris had been informed of this bilateral meeting with the Italian leader. However, the event was still interpreted as an implicit response to recent differences between France and Germany. Despite the close relationship displayed between Merz and President Emmanuel Macron since the chancellor’s election in May 2025, disagreements have multiplied in recent months.
France opposed the agreement between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur, which Germany supported. France blocked the use of frozen Russian assets to fund aid to Ukraine, a scenario personally backed by the chancellor. And there appears to be no progress on the French-German fighter jet project launched in 2017, even as Europe faces a need to rearm.
Ah shit, here we go again.
I am rarely proud of French politics but somehow Germany manages to make it happen.
Shades of a 21st century Axis right here.
Definitely parts of it, yeah. But it’s also a mixed bag - the fact that France helped stonewall the appropriation of an overtly hostile adversary’s assets is deeply fucking stupid, for example. And Macron’s unbelievable idiocy when it comes to the domestic French situation has me worried they’re gonna open the door for RN (their far right) to snag a win in the next election.
And Macron’s unbelievable idiocy when it comes to the domestic French situation has me worried they’re gonna open the door for RN (their far right) to snag a win in the next election.
The German government is doing exactly the same thing with the German far-right AfD.
I guess the desire for a new Rome and a new Reich still exist in their psyches? What’s the explanation for them being so easily manipulated into voting far right candidates in (yes, I know Russia pays them, at least Meloni, but that’s just a nudge)?
Who needs enemies, when you share a border with the Germans
