German-French relations | No borders: Berlin is wearing down France's bourgeoisie

Jörg Kronauer is a journalist and member of the editorial team at www.german-foreign-policy.com.

Undisputed: France's liberal bourgeoisie faces numerous problems, many of them of their own making. Not the least of them is their large eastern neighbor. German politics is increasingly cornering the forces for which President Emmanuel Macron stands and fights. The most recent example: the negotiations over the EU budget. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pushing hard for the EU Commission to withdraw its plans for slightly higher spending and to dramatically cut its draft budget. France in particular would feel the consequences. Because, depending on the situation and the will of the Federal Republic, the agricultural budget would be cut; That would hit France's farmers hard, who are already being hit - keyword: Mercosur free trade agreement. If Macron cannot prevail against Merz in Brussels - and that is exactly what we have to expect - then his liberal bourgeoisie would have to push through the cut in agricultural subsidies. How France's farmers would react is anyone's guess. Macron would therefore be further undermined – by the author of the cuts, Berlin.

There are various other examples. France's space industry would benefit from the EU project IRIS2, the "European Starlink", if it actually comes to fruition. The fact that this is no longer entirely clear is because Berlin is using its skyrocketing defense spending, among other things, to build a “German Starlink” solely for the Bundeswehr. If there are no longer enough funds for the former, it would be a bitter blow for French space travel - and with it again for Macron.

This also applies to the fact that the federal government no longer supports the close cooperation between SAP and the recently very promising French AI company Mistral, which was initiated at the end of 2025. As an alternative, a cooperation with Aleph Alpha from Heidelberg is being discussed and possibly also with its Canadian partner company Cohere. German-German, maybe German-Canadian, but just not German-French? This has long been a system; the examples could easily be multiplied. France's liberal bourgeoisie is certainly being destroyed by many things, but certainly also by the German government in Berlin.

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