Whether one is "convinced" Europeanist or "sovereignist" to the tips of the nails, it is true that the document has enough to perplex. The feeling of mistrust of the "people above", embodied by the indefatigable yellow vests, is not likely to subside before what looks like another agreement signed "in the back" of citizens like that of Marrakech. What is this document, what does it cover? If it is not a matter of annexing Alsace as we have seen on social networks, it is in any case more Europe. Much more. Alexandre del Valle analyzes here the main problematic aspects of the treaty and how recalcitrant are systematically demonized via the reductio ad hitlerum.

In the words of the agreement, it would be a matter of strengthening Franco-German collaboration in "the fields of economic policy; foreign policy; of security ; education and culture; research and technology; climate and the environment as well as cooperation between border regions and between civil societies ". the first question that arises is: are we facing an ambitious project or unpacking beautiful words? When it comes to a "more sovereign, united and democratic Europe", one wonders what is the sovereignty of a Europe that is not well understood if it covers the European Union, a geographical area, a vague idea, often illusory, if it is a unitary Europe geocivilizational plan yet many leaders including Merkel and Macron refused to demarcate it for example from Islam. On the other hand, collaboration is not convergence, but it is the latter in question: to "converge their economies and their social models, foster cultural diversity and bring their societies and their citizens closer together". Is this yet another call to diversity - after Marrakech, which established a priori "positive contribution" of immigrants and the aggressive tendencies of the natives? We are entitled to ask the question, especially since we do not see what convergence and cultural diversity can do together. It can also be noted that when it comes to French culture, there has never been any question of asking anyone - not even "newcomers" to "converge" their culture with that of the nation. These are completely different paradigms, and if the spirit of collaboration, friendship, and "convergence" prevails in this Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in practice it is a question of implementing principles of organization of the opposing society (Convergence and cultural diversity, collaboration and "establishment" of a culture, etc.).

In fact, it is the minor oppositions and the ambiguous terms of this type that raise questions. When it comes to military cooperation with a view to "establishing a common culture", one wonders what has become of the soft terms of friendship and collaboration to "establish" a "culture", as one the fact of a political regime or state of emergency.

Admittedly, it has been reminded that this is not the first pact of its kind between Paris and Berlin, the 1964 Élysée Treaty between De Gaulle and Adenauer already establishing this relationship of "friendship" between the two. country. However, to compare the two, it is clear that the new-born Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle does not seem to make any more case of the very notion of "nation". Germany and France are no longer distinct nations, with what it implies in terms of culture, identity, interests, and on the contrary sees them fall into the rank of administrative entities, as is the case (alas) towns. It is also the meaning - we must not be mistaken - of the insistence with which the Treaty speaks of the "sovereignty" of Europe (meaning the European Union). Since this sovereignty can only be defined in relation to an extra-European third party (the United States, for example), it also implies a certain relationship to its internal elements. In short, the European Union would be a Supra-nation, whose citizens, without having had a say, gradually aim to be extracted from their home nations to obtain the (superior) status of "citizen of the Union ", of" European citizen ". National sovereignty is thus either obliterated or diluted in a broader sovereignty and de facto then de jure antinomic that is the "European sovereignty".The antinational nonsense of the European federalist project as it has evolved involuntarily since the 1990s.For several years, there has been a growing polarization of the debate, against the backdrop of (cosmo) politically correct, which consists in granting a false freedom of speech to those who think recalcitrantly, either by limiting their expression or by silencing them, or by caricaturing it or, more often, by demonizing it. Just like the question of immigration, Islam, Brexit, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle does not escape this syndrome. Thus, Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian Prime Minister, a candidate for Europeans with the slogan of "putting an end to nationalism", has today likened the critical voices of the Franco-German treaty to extreme speeches. right. In the context of heated reactions to the treaty, Emmanuel Macron referred to "those who forget the value of peace and spread the lie," and thus make themselves "complicit in the crimes of the past", which is in fact downright to make the eurosceptics pass for pro-Nazis, nostalgic or accomplices of the Collaboration. Other supporters of the Franco-German treaty evoke the "nationalist movements" inside Europe, which would therefore threaten it again. Macron speaks of fighting against "the enemies of Europe. In the same way and with the same practice of the "Godwin point", the speech of Angela Merkel also regularly makes multiple references to the Second World War, an exclusive and unsurpassable tuning fork for decades for any debater and any European leader well- thinking. In reality, there is nothing to indicate or attest that the fact of seeing this treatise with a little less eye than a lead is indeed a proof of extreme-rightism, on the contrary, because all totalitarianisms are imperialist and hostile to the sovereignty of the States and Nations they wish to absorb, annex or destroy, peacefully or violently. From this point of view, it is rather the German-centered and neo-imperial European project that should alert the vigilant and "resistant" consciences and not the legitimate will of the peoples not to resolve to their announced dilution. In this respect, we notice that Merkel, like Macron, and other convinced Europeans, constantly make allusions to the war, to the enemy. But the enemy is above all the "nationalist" (indeed the bogeyman has changed: it is enough to be nationalist). The military cooperation thus envisaged raises the question of the real target: is it extra-European nationalism that threatens the European Union? So, when the French president says he wants to make Europe "a shield to protect our peoples from the changes in the world," we wonder what he really has in mind.Those who are for the European Union, those who are against ... is this really the cleavage?.Macron and Merkel have had a lot to say about their "more Europe", and the supporters of the treaty have pretended to believe that only the extreme anti-Europeanists could find fault, spreading fake news, of course, which are inconceivable on the part of the "good", necessarily honest, objective and ethical. In reality, those who are interested in the project of a European Union bringing together States for certain common goals but keeping their sovereignty, what was the original project of Schuman, De Gasperi, Adenauer, De Gaulle, can not see this treaty without worry. While Merkel laments the attacks on "multilateralism", the German Chancellor and the French president's answer is a bilateral agreement in which Paris and Berlin are forming the hard core of the European Union To all other members of the Union. One could specify a club which, even "open" to others, remains in fact the property of its first "well-oriented" founders, while the "new" members, coming from the East, mostly populist and / or Nationalists (Hungary, Poland, etc.), are denied in their alternative vision of Europe. It is all the less understandable that "restive" states are multiplying, with the need to provide specific responses to each nation. At a time when the Union is wavering under the British brink of Brexit, was there really no better answer than to create this Manichean polarity which leaves no space for those who, without being "ex- Do not want to condone the federalist-globalist drift and prefer the "reformist" path of another Europe? While one castigates those who leave for good (Brexiteurs) for not having wanted to "change from within", should we really continue to exclude, demonize the Kurtz-Orban-Salvini who propose to to reform Europe to save it from its announced self-dissolution? Is it intelligent and productive for our virtuous Euro-Federalist elites to suggest that, in fact, the European Union would have a Franco-German "engine", in the strict sense of the word, Benelux, and that the rest of "peripheral" Europe simply to submit or to resign? We remember that a few years ago, Angela Merkel had recognized, in a spirit of lucidity (electoral), the "failure of multiculturalism", which cost him the presidency of his party. Conscious that she could no longer endorse the "identitarists", she has since brought hundreds of thousands of "migrants", has continued to nazify those who drew the conclusions of his own observation of failure of multiculturalism, then sign now a treaty whose successor did not even know the content ... That such a treaty be signed between a president without national support and a Chancellor on the way out, both loss of legitimacy, says a lot about the "post-democratic" nature of Europeanism. And this "Franco-German Pact" only reinforces - among peoples attached to their sovereignty - the feeling, true or false, that our post-democratic leaders would work towards the gradual dissolution of nations, a condition sine qua non for building the "European Nation". Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macon, both vowed to develop the Union in a federalist sense whatever happens, even if the Eurosceptics are more numerous in the south (Italy, Greece) and in the East (Visegrad group). The ultra-cleaving speeches which portray nationalism and even mere sovereignism as major "threats" to the Union can only worry the European who still wants to be a citizen of his nation before being that of Europe.Convergence, convergence ... substitution, resignation.Convergence of economic and social models, "cultural space and common media" (decidedly the media have the attention of leaders, remember-no plans for "awareness" that the pact of Marrakech provided for these "actors" of society). .. that's a lot to put "in common" (in addition to military capabilities), all sprinkled with "cultural diversity". When the two countries promise each other a common vision so that the European Union presents a united front (notably to the United Nations), it is clear that we are going beyond convergence and that we are close to the substitutability of two countries. But the games of huckster and substitution that make Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron by this treaty do not erase essential differences. France holds the nuclear weapon, not Germany. Will "collaboration" extend to that point? At what price ? France is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, not Germany. Will France give up its exclusive seat to share it with its partner? To make Germany's desire to become a permanent member of the United Nations a "priority of Franco-German collaboration" is not only surprising, but it should prompt us to ask what will be the German counterpart to France. The answer is perhaps in the common attention that the two countries bring to Africa, where France is militarily mired ... So we go from convergence (already questionable) to a quasi-resignation of the Nation to the benefit of a Franco-German alliance.Fake news etc ?.As in the case of the Marrakesh pact, a number of chroniclers, fact-checkers and other scoundrels in search of forgery have tried to convince the public that the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle is especially "symbolic" (he too!), that it presents nothing new, and that, above all, there would not be so many questions to ask about it as what the omnipresent "extreme right" would make believe. And as for the pact of Marrakesh (so-called "non-binding"), one wonders what would be the use of signing an act that we are told that it would have no value, impact, or anything new? But if it is something as innocuous and harmless, if the "populists" have "lied" on this pact, how it was necessary to wait until the last minute (a few days before the signature January 22) so that the Elysee finally publishes the document on its website? Why were parliamentarians themselves not informed? Why, in a context of mistrust of the European Union, and yet under the guise of "strengthening", has there been no mention of citizens and elected officials? The whole problem lies in the fact that, in a field that is part of politics and military strategy, both Merkel and Macron have chosen to distort the debate by contrasting the populist Manichean versus the Europeanist, that is, according to undesirable and acceptable. By this means they have padlocked even more this Europe to which, it seems, everyone belongs, but that no one can touch, that we do not have the right to define from an identity point of view, and who Its vocation is, like a normative empire, to expand without limits of borders and cultures, as long as one shares the religion of human rights and submits oneself to one's norms...Original source in French https://www.atlantico.fr/rdv/3564437/le-traite-franco-allemand-ou-la-strategie-de-diabolisation-des-europeistes-contre--europhobes--lexandre-del-valle