Germany and France Once Strong Economic Allies Now Partnership Crumbling

Pew’s findings dovetail with Eurobarometer poll results revealed last month in the Guardian that showed a collapse in public support for the EU in the union’s six biggest countries, making up two-thirds of the half-billion population.

The survey results are particularly spectacular for France, reinforcing the sense of drift a year into the term of President François Hollande and underlining the estrangement between Paris and Berlin.

“The prolonged economic crisis is separating the French from the Germans – threatening the Franco-German axis that has long driven European integration. And it has separated the Germans from everyone else.

“No European country is becoming more dispirited and disillusioned faster than France. French public opinion has soured on a number of measures in the last year … Even more dramatically, French public opinion on a range of issues is now looking less like that in Germany and more like that in Spain, Italy and Greece … The French are also beginning to doubt their commitment to the European project, with 77% believing European economic integration has made things worse for France, an increase of 14 points.”

Pretty much the only optimism evident in the survey is in Germany, leading the pollsters to conclude that the Germans are living “on a different continent”.

via The Guardian

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