Introduction

Abstract

France and Germany have much in common. Both are wealthy and industrial or post-industrial; both have belonged to the world’s leading economies. After World War II, both France and Germany experienced decisive political consolidation. With the political systems of the Fifth Republic in France and the Federal Republic in West Germany in place, both became stable democracies.¹ Similarly, soon after the war, both enjoyed decades of rapid economic growth and an enormous rise in living standards and per capita income—the trente glorieuses in France, and the Wirtschaftswunder in Germany. Later, especially from the 1970s, both suffered similar economic and social problems that included decaying industries such as coal and steel, oil and energy crises, and rising unemployment. From the 1950s onwards, both France and Germany have become increasingly enmeshed in European integration. Until the collapse of the Berlin Wall, both countries found themselves deeply entangled in the Cold War, US-Soviet competition and the East-West conflict, and the very real and palpable specter of total nuclear annihilation. And since the 1990s both countries have ridden the wave of globalization.