July 20, 2011
As Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel sat down for crisis talks today on the eve of the emergency eurozone summit, Europe's fate seemed again in the hands of the continent's most unlikely couple.
Co-pilots of what the French like to call the "moteur" that drives Europe forward, the pair, while on the same political centre-right, are otherwise as different as Laurel and Hardy: he nervous, twitchy, given to tics and touchy-feely Gallic gestures; she solid, stubborn and reticent.
The hyperactive "Super" Sarkozy thinks she is ponderous, slow and too keen on rules; the methodical "Iron Frau" Merkel considers him overly impatient, impetuous and too quick to break them.
The pair do not speak the same language – literally or metaphorically – so like the hapless comic duo, when it comes to Franco-German relations anything can happen.
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