Chirac's nuclear testing in the Pacific caused outrage on the other side of the Rhine in 1995. Since the launch of the single currency, there has been no big project to unite Paris and Berlin. Enlargement, the most ambitious item on the EU agenda, is a source of division. Germany, though worried about Polish farmers and Hungarian pollution, is deeply committed to expanding the number of members. France, by contrast, is still more interested in the southern Mediterranean and the Maghreb.
Personalities matter too.
Kohl's departure was the loss of a man of European vision. France's socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, is less enthusiastic about Europe than his predecessors. No surprise then that France's turn at the EU's rotating presidency, which begins this July, is awaited elsewhere in Europe with some trepidation. Important divergences exist over social policy. All of which is good for the United Kingdom.