François de Rugy, Speaker of the French National Assembly. Picture by Bruno Perroud.
Monday, 22 January 2018, Bundestag’s Plenary Assembly, Berlin: To mark 55 years since the signing of the Élysée Treaty of friendship and reconciliation between the then West German Republic and the French Republic, the Speaker of the French National Assembly, François Goullet de Rugy, held an allocution before federal German parliamentarians. His German counterpart, Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble, responded to the courtesy by traveling on the same day in the afternoon to Paris to speak before the French National Assembly, accompanied by an inter-parliamentary delegation of German MPs.
François Goullet de Rugy addressed his audience in impeccable German. He urged his Bundestag colleagues to vote in collaboration with French deputies for a renewed treaty of friendship between Germany and France in the spirit of the Élysée Treaty signed on 22 January 1963 by French President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.
Albeit neither President Emmanuel Macron nor Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel were present during the speech, they delivered a mutual video recorded at the Salon Murat located in the Élysée Palace urging the MPs to buttress up enthusiasm for the renewed treaty.
President Macron already flirted with the idea of a renewed treaty back in September 2017 in an effort to further solidify Franco-German ties as a spinal cord for a stark European Union.
For further information:
Full text of Élysée Treaty: http://www.
French National Assembly: http://www.
