[dohtml]<p align="right"><i>Thursday 28 February 2008</i></p><p align="center"><b><font size="4">Europe’s closest friendship falls apart</font></b></p>[/dohtml]To cancel one high-level Franco-German meeting is unfortunate. To cancel two in less than a week implies a bank of freezing fog is descending over the Rhine.

Privately, and not so privately, the talk in both capitals is of a serious rift in the single most important national partnership in Europe. Officials blame an increasingly difficult relationship between President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Late last week, Paris postponed for three months a Franco-German summit that had been scheduled for next Monday in Bavaria. The Elysée Palace said that President Sarkozy’s diary was too busy.

Early this week, France called off at, one day’s notice, a meeting between the French Finance minister, Christine Lagarde, and her German counterpart, Peer Steinbrück.

The French and German governments insisted officially that the postponement was a timetabling problem.[dohtml]<blockquote><font face="Comic Sans MS">Full story at <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/europes-closest-friendship-falls-apart-788582.html" target="_blank">The Independent</a></font></blockquote>[/dohtml]

Did you know? France and Germany once quarrelled over the territories of Alsace–Lorraine. :huh:

[dohtml]<div style="font-size: 12pt; color: black; font-family: Comic Sans MS"><p>Did you know? Germany has also quarrelled with Denmark over the territory of Schleswig-Holstein. :unsure:</p></div>[/dohtml]

[dohtml]<p align="right"><i>Monday 10 March 2008</i></p><p align="center"><b><font size="4">Sarkozy punished in municipal elections</font></b></p>[/dohtml]French voters signalled their severe displeasure with President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday, 10 months after he promised to create a “winning” France for the 21st century.

President Sarkozy’s popularity has plummeted since the beginning of the year, punctured by falling living standards and dissatisfaction with his celebrity image and casual presidential style. Many of his own UMP supporters had begged him to stay away from the municipal campaign and some had even removed the party emblem from their leaflets and websites.

Yesterday’s elections, to more than [dohtml]36&nbsp;000[/dohtml] city, town and village councils and half of the 96 départements (counties), were his first direct exposure to voter anger since his election last May. Although many of the issues and grievances were local, municipal elections have considerable national importance.[dohtml]<blockquote><font face="Trebuchet MS"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/sarkozy-punished-in-municipal-elections-793682.html" target="_blank">The Independent</a></font></blockquote>[/dohtml]

[dohtml]I have just read in the glossary at the end of Chapter&nbsp;19, “Economics and trade”, under the section THE HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT in Volume&nbsp;2, “The human world”, of the Reader’s Digest Library of Modern Knowledge about European Economic Community – which was what the organization was known as in 1981, when the encyclopedia was published. Did you know? It was founded in 1957 and its original members were West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.[/dohtml]