In the interest of the fairness doctrine, I have translated a little bit of the Spiegel article this morning regarding the tensions between Germany and France. This, of course, represents the German point of view. I did try to maintain as much of the snark in the original article as I could:
Nicolas Sarkozy? Mention the name of the French president nowadays and you will usually see annoyed faces on the coalition members in the union and FDP. The “French commander”, as the gossip goes, doesn’t find it necessary to inform anyone before he lets his fighter jets loose on Libya. And didn’t the president once let ” Brother Colonel“ Muammar al-Gaddafi pitch his Bedouin tent in Paris? Monsieur Sarkozy probably wants that fact to be forgotten quickly – his close relations with other North-African despots as well. Oh, and he does have an election to win in the coming year. A resolute war deployment in the name of human rights won’t hurt him there.
No, those in Berlin these days don’t speak kindly of their neighbor in the west, the one with whom they usually put a high value on their good relationship with. The military engagement is causing tension.
The Federal government considers the action a mistake, hurried, without proper planning, nonetheless, with much pathos. France is resolved to play its “role in the history”, announced Sarkozy. He dashed ahead, pushing Germany – diplomatically not clumsily – into a precarious outsider role foreign policy-wise on the side of China and Russia. And now Paris would even like to degrade NATO to mini-assistent. France is annoying, they are thinking in Berlin. So much so that FDP Faction leader Birgit Homburger openly allowed her displeasure free reign on Wednesday: “I don’t recognize that will we allow ourselves to be criticized by those who act singlehandedly themselves.”
