60 years after the signing of the Elysée Treaty, it was this Sunday the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, to show the understanding of their two nations and present ways to strengthen ties between them.
This Sunday, the ministers of France and Germany met for the first time at the Élysée for a common Council of Ministers. After this meeting, the head of the German Government, Olaf Scholz, and Emmanuel Macron gave a press conference.
If the exchanges essentially revolved around international news, the Ukrainian question, as well as the opposition aroused by the pension reform project among many French people, the two men nonetheless presented several widgets that would supposedly encourage Francoist friendship. With an emblematic measure: the issuance of free train tickets for German and French youth.
Deutsche Bahn and SNCF united in this project
France and Germany will thus institute this “binational ticket” for young people in the summer, of which 60,000 copies will be free. The idea is to “promote train travel within the two countries”, according to the terms used by the two leaders. However, the terms of the provision of these tickets have yet to be specified, French and German Transport Ministers Clément Beaune and Volker Missing warned in a joint press release.
On the other hand, we know that the two States have promised a financial participation in this system that will associate the SNCF with the Deutsche Bahn (DB). In addition, Paris and Berlin say they “support” the development by 2024 of a direct high-speed rail link between Berlin and Paris, as well as a night train connecting the two European capitals.
Strengthen the learning of the neighbor’s language
Emmanuel Macron then moved away from the lane to detail the rest of the planned roadmap to promote cooperation and harmony between neighbors from one bank to the other of the Rhine.
“We had a quick exchange with the first class of our Franco-German program for young talents, led by the Franco-German Youth Office which, in almost 60 years of existence, will have enabled the mobility of nearly 10 million between our two countries,” he said.
“We will intensify our efforts to learn our respective languages,” he further promised.
Source: BFM TV
