<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Chancellor Olaf Scholz visits Paris on Sunday to celebrate 60 years of postwar Franco-German cooperation, with the historic partnership under strain from Russia's invasion of Ukraine and broader tectonic shifts.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">Scholz's personal relationship is less than warm with President Emmanuel Macron, as the two leaders meet in the morning at the Sorbonne University before a joint cabinet meeting from 1:30 pm (1230 GMT).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But "there are structural problems that go further than the personal relationship", said Jacob Ross, a researcher at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The frictions are even felt by the public, with 36 percent of French respondents and 39 percent of Germans telling pollster Ipsos this week that relations were suffering.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 1963 Elysee Treaty signed between post-World War II leaders Konrad Adenauer and Charles de Gaulle provided for everything from military cooperation to youth exchanges.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since then, France and Germany have often built the foundation for joint crisis response in Europe, and other nations are looking to them again now.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Top issues to address include the Ukraine conflict, climate and energy, and European competitiveness faced with a new wave of buy-American subsidies in the US.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"In both countries we are aware that we are the motor of Europe," Baerbel Bas, president of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, told AFP in an interview.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I'm very hopeful that French-German relations will find new momentum thanks to the celebrations on Sunday," she said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- Ukraine war -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Germany is still undecided on whether to deliver -- or allow allies to deliver -- its Leopard 2 battle tanks to Kyiv almost a year into the invasion.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The impression that "there is a united coalition, and that Germany is standing in the way is wrong", newly installed Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said Friday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">France has been pressing Germany to move faster, dashing ahead on mobile artillery in April and light tanks this month.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Elsewhere, moves to jointly develop next-generation fighter jets and tanks are dragging, while France is absent from a 14-nation Sky Shield anti-missile initiative led by Germany.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ross suggested that part of the problem lies in France's clinging to a historic self-image as a sovereign, nuclear-armed power with a seat on the UN Security Council -- in contrast to a Germany happy to leave defence questions primarily to the US in recent decades.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are early signs of change on both sides, with France re-energising its NATO role since the Ukraine invasion and Germany's 100-billion-euro ($108 billion) revamp of its armed forces.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- 'Put to the test' -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Away from defence, interlinked trade and energy conundrums are hitting both France and Germany.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For Berlin, "things have got very complicated because Germany's economic and political model is being put to the test," said Maurice Gourdault-Montagne, a former French ambassador to Berlin.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Without cheap Russian gas or nuclear power, Berlin has been forced to turn back in part to coal as renewables still can't make up the difference.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">France, by contrast, is scrambling to repair and replace its ageing nuclear reactor fleet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some in Berlin now fear China will follow Russia's invasion of Ukraine by making a grab for Taiwan -- which it sees as a breakaway province -- potentially severing Germany from a vital market.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And leaders across Europe fear distortions in transatlantic trade from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which will pour billions of dollars into American-made climate-friendly technologies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Macron is expected to push Scholz Sunday to join a joint response, after securing backing from Spanish leader Pedro Sanchez this week.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For France and Germany in particular, there are also fundamentals that must be tended to preserve the relationship into the future.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"The relationship has become less real" for ordinary French and Germans, said Gourdault-Montagne, and "lost some of its emotion". AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>