Merkel and Macron Tobias Schwarz/Getty Images

The Changing Geopolitics of European Emotion

A new triangle of geopolitical emotion has emerged in Europe: Great Britain has ceased feeling superior to France, and France has stopped feeling inferior to Germany. The question is whether this sentimental transformation will ultimately reorder the balance of power in Europe, and possibly the world.

PARIS – A new triangle of geopolitical emotion has emerged in Europe: Great Britain has ceased feeling superior to France, and France has stopped feeling inferior to Germany. The question is whether this sentimental transformation will ultimately reorder the balance of power in Europe, and possibly the world.

Developments currently underway in Britain and France will prove decisive. It remains to be seen how the British repair the damage they are inflicting upon themselves through the Brexit quagmire. And it is still unclear if the French can harness the strong and positive energy of their new president, Emmanuel Macron, to implement badly needed reforms.

But even as those uncertainties play out, both countries are engaging in a kind of zero-sum transfer of emotions that is impossible to ignore. In the past, traveling to London from Paris, one could easily sense the difference between the two cities. London was bursting with dynamism, and proud to assert itself as the world capital of multiculturalism. Paris, although undeniably more beautiful, was in danger of becoming a new Rome, a prisoner of its past glory, at best a place to visit, but not a place to be.

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