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of the Front National compared the issue of Turkish immigration in
Germany to that of Arab immigration in France. What is interesting in
this respect is that both French politicians in the right-wing parties and
in the Socialist Party seem to have these more or less closed attitudes. As
Jacques Baron, a minister from the center, remarked of what he called
the renaissance of the French-German Pact: "The only way to manage
and build a new Europe is in a very strong partnership between France
and Germany, a partnership which will be blossoming and bright. The
challenge is immediate. France and Germany will be in charge of
presiding over the EEC; the two nations have an historical role in this
respect." The French and German governments have to show by inter–
acting with each other that they can handle social, political, and eco–
norruc Issues.
Let me conclude. Today there are only a few weeks left before the
French presidential elections, and as you might know, in France before
presidential elections, during presidential elections, and after presidential
elections, you keep talking about them. Now that we are close, the
candidate who seems to be doing best in the polls is Jacques Chirac. But
no matter what the position of the three candidates, Giscard, Jospin, and
Chirac, they seem to share a position on Germany, to maintain their
leadership of Europe. The French are still holding on to a kind of pa–
ternalistic attitude towards Germany. We talk about it as we do about a
citizen who has fallen into disgrace.
I
think no one should be surprised
that the French are handling the reunification of Germany in terms of
ethics, because ethics, as you know, are essential in French politics. And
I
would sum up by saying that what perhaps symbolizes how the French
perceive the new Germany is the imminent "wrapping" of the Reichstag
by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, which
I
am sure will be a very
powerful gesture.
Edith Kurzweil:
First,
I
want to thank all of the panelists.
I
also
would like to remind the audience that we are conducting our discus–
sions in English, which for a number of our panelists is not their native
language. We can imagine how difficult this would be for us , were we
in their position.
We have touched on many issues, on the repercussions and percep–
tions related to personal experience, to political events and actions, to
handling political issues through political means. The interpretation of
all
of these things, the various dialectics among them, individual representa–
tions of self and the mind, and finally the cultural representations by
France, Germany's oldest or shall we say most related-to neighbor - not
usually in a most friendly fashion . Now we'll open the discussions, and
