Macron-meets-Johnson: once as de Gaulle and Churchill feel

the swastika flags fluttering in the arc de Triomphe in Paris, fled to the French government ahead of the advancing Wehrmacht to Bordeaux, as the brigade General Charles de Gaulle on 18. June 1940 from London made an urgent appeal to his countrymen in the home is. You should not be beaten, he says, knarzender voice in the radio station BBC: "whatever happens, The flame of French resistance must not and will not extinguish." The appeal of 18. June is considered the birth of Gaullism and established France's claim to the victory of the power status. He is the French as important as the British, the "blood, sweat and tears"speech of Winston Churchill on 13. May 1940, stopped in front of the British house of Commons.

Michaela Wiegel

Political correspondent, based in Paris.

To 80. The anniversary of this famous call, the understanding remains for the French, self-embossing, is President of Emmanuel Macron traveled on Thursday to London. Air parade, wreath-laying ceremonies at the statues of Churchill, king George VI and de Gaulle visit to the old building of the BBC, symbolic consumption of the city of London in the Legion of honor and stay in the Carlton Gardens, the former quartermaster General of de Gaulle with HRH Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla: Macron has a pompous ceremony for his first foreign appearance since the outbreak of the Corona-pandemic organize.

Paris and London, "side by side"

but most important to him was the conversation with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Churchill biography, he is said to have "read with interest". "The battles that are before us today, other than 80 years ago," Johnson said shortly before the encounter. He had no doubt that France and the United Kingdom have grown all the new challenges "side by side". Macron and Johnson unites most importantly, the desire, role models, de Gaulle and Churchill to build, even if it does not want to both succeed in law. Sometimes it acts as if you had agreed on a mild Remake of the fits of rage, insults and a mutual admiration relationship between Churchill and de Gaulle.