The Mitterrand-Kohl couple, the true driving drive of European development | EUROtoday

IThey stand at a good way from one another in entrance of the catafalque of an unknown soldier who fell seventy years earlier in Verdun. And, dealing with the nationwide flags and the troopers, stand at consideration. They don't take a look at one another. But on September 22, 1984 in Douaumont, the French socialist president François Mitterrand and the German Christian Democratic chancellor Helmut Kohl instantly prolonged their arms to firmly take one another's palms. With this distinctive gesture, they started collectively a brand new part within the historical past of reconciliation inaugurated on September 14, 1958 with the go to to Colombey-les-Deux-Églises of the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, invited to lunch, to dinner and to spend the evening on the residence of President Charles de Gaulle and his spouse Yvonne.