Olaf Scholz receives Emmanuel Macron in Potsdam – for dinner

The most important question first: What’s to eat? When Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz sit down to the table in Potsdam on Tuesday evening, they can expect “new Prussian cuisine”. This is the self-promotion of the Kochzimmer restaurant, to which the Chancellor invited the French President. According to the season, chef David Schubert will probably serve a dish with Beelitz asparagus. The recommended menu of the past few days also included saddle of venison from Brandenburg Fläming and a combination of rhubarb, ginger and white chocolate for dessert. The price for six courses in the Michelin one-star restaurant is normally 135 euros, excluding drinks. If the French president particularly likes a course, the chancellor can “upgrade” it for his guest for 20 euros.

Food has always played an important role in the political relationship between Germany and France. In order to loosen up the relationship between the respective president and the chancellor (or the chancellor), it is almost traditional to choose an extensive meal with as small a group as possible in a pleasant atmosphere. Macron and Scholz work closely together, but there are always rumors about mood swings – which could also be due to the fact that the two politicians have very different temperaments, to put it mildly.

The Chancellor asks the President to visit his adopted home of Potsdam

Macron and Scholz have dined together several times, most recently at breakfast on the sidelines of the EU summit in March, more extensively at a lunch in October 2022 at the Elysée Palace and in January 2023 in the evening at Brasserie La Rotonde, the President’s favorite restaurant. But the meeting in the cooking room is their first encounter with a quasi-private character in Germany. It is the first time that Scholz has received a political guest like this. The chancellor and his wife Britta Ernst have been living in Potsdam for a number of years, and Scholz, a member of the Bundestag, now also has his constituency here.

If the relationship continues to falter here and there, there is still room for improvement: under the predecessors, things were sometimes much more private. Helmut Schmidt received Valery Giscard d’Estaing in his private home in Hamburg-Langenhorn in 1978. It is not documented that the two gentlemen ate, but it is very likely – especially since they later withdrew to Schmidt’s basement bar, called “Kneipe”. A famous picture shows Schmidt behind the counter with a cigarette between his fingers and Giscard on a bar stool. Here they discussed what was decided shortly afterwards at the European Council in Bremen: a common currency. It was the birth of the euro.

45 years later, its future is also an issue between Scholz and Macron. Germany and France have different opinions about the future debt rules in the EU. The EU Commission is proposing an easing to give ailing states more flexibility in repaying their liabilities. This position is difficult to achieve with a finance minister from the FDP.

Kohl “threatened” Mitterrand with the return of the Saarland

Helmut Kohl, who lives in Ludwigshafen-Oggersheim, was happy to invite his important guests to his home in Rhineland-Palatinate, far away from Bonn. The chancellor’s ulterior motive: the cosiness of the provinces should convince presidents and heads of government of the harmlessness of a neither-united Germany. The preferred retreat was the Deidesheimer Hof, where Kohl had the Saumagen served by master butcher Klaus Hambel, who later revealed the recipe: 40 percent very lean pork, 30 percent diced Quarta potatoes, 30 percent pork fat, salt, pepper, nutmeg, coriander and marjoram. Legend has it that French President Francois Mitterrand was not enthusiastic, whereupon the Chancellor told him to eat up or else he would get the Saarland and Oskar Lafontaine back.

Gerhard Schröder and Jacques Chirac discussed their differences about the reform of the European Union in December 2000 in Hanover – not in Schröder’s private house but in the guest house of the Lower Saxony state government. The president expressly thanked him for “the best pork knuckle I’ve ever eaten”. Chirac was so enthusiastic about the pork knuckle that when he said goodbye to Schröder’s then wife, Doris Schröder-Köpf, he immediately acknowledged it again: “I’ve already told your husband, the knuckle of pork was simply amazing, extraordinary.” Then he kisses the chancellor’s wife on the right and left cheeks and drove away. A week later, at the Nice summit, the EU agreed on a reform that would make eastward enlargement possible.

23 years later, their continuation is also an issue for Scholz and Macron. The chancellor in particular is pushing for the extension of majority decisions to other policy areas. This is the only way for the EU to remain able to act after an expansion to include the Balkan states, which Scholz vehemently advocated.

The chancellor in private with Sarkozy’s famous girlfriend

Angela Merkel’s first president was Nicolas Sarkozy – also a complicated relationship, especially in the financial crisis. In November 2008, the President invited the Chancellor to a private lunch to melt the ice. The hostess was Sarkozy’s then new wife, Carla Bruni. Merkel, who has a weakness for gossip, was informed about the relationship early on and delved into the newspapers about the singer, who was previously unknown to her.

The Brunis house is located in the upmarket Parisian residential area of ​​Villa Montmorency. The lady of the house received her guests together with her son. No fuss, no staff, just the translators. The lady of the house cooked herself, served – and the President served. Among other things, there was fried duck liver with a parfait. When Merkel indicated that she liked the food, Sarkozy said that’s what he thought – after all, he chose the food.

Merkel to Macron: “I’m tired of sweeping up the broken pieces”

How it actually goes with such a meal only seldom leaks out. In November 2019, Merkel met her third French President Emmanuel Macron in Berlin. The occasion was the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall. Macron had recently caused a stir because he had described NATO as “brain dead”. The Chancellor had already contradicted this publicly. At dinner, the New York Times later reported, the chancellor insulted the president again in a small circle: “I’m tired of sweeping up the broken pieces. I keep having to glue the cups that you broke together , just so we can sit down and have a cup of tea again.” Macron replied that given NATO’s problems at the upcoming NATO meeting in December, he could not “sit there and pretend nothing happened”.

Scholz and Macron are now also meeting immediately before a NATO summit. It remains to be seen whether shards will have to be swept up in the cooking room after dinner together. The owners of the Potsdam restaurant may be expecting longer clean-up work. At least at the beginning of the week it was not possible to reserve a table for the day after the Chancellor and President met.