What the French riots mean for the Franco-German relationship

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Good morning. A scoop to start: The EU is considering a proposal to let one of Russia’s sanctioned banks create a subsidiary that would be allowed to use the Swift financial messaging system, in an attempt to win the Kremlin’s support for extending the Black Sea grain deal crucial for Ukraine’s agricultural exports.

Today, our Berlin bureau chief dissects the German government’s response to French president Emmanuel Macron’s cancelled state visit due to domestic riots. And our Madrid bureau chief ponders whether riding a bike makes you a leftie.

Inflamed

German chancellor Olaf Scholz said he understands why French president Emmanuel Macron cancelled his state visit to Germany to deal with riots at home, saying “I would have done exactly the same thing.”

But, he added, such riots would not have occurred in Germany, writes Guy Chazan.

Context: France has been shaken by violent protests since a 17-year-old teenager was shot by police last Tuesday. The riots began calming down yesterday, authorities said, but Macron decided to remain in Paris to focus on the government’s response.

Speaking in an interview with the German public broadcaster ARD yesterday afternoon, Scholz described the riots as “very depressing”, but said he did not think France was entering a new era of instability.

He said there was no justification for acts of violence and wished Macron “good luck” in dealing with the situation.

Macron’s state visit to Germany, the first by a French president in 23 years, had been seen as a rare opportunity to kick-start the sputtering Franco-German engine, seen by many as the most important bilateral relationship in the EU.

Ties between Berlin and Paris have been strained by disagreements over everything from the status of nuclear energy to European co-operation on air defence and reform of the EU’s fiscal rules.

But Scholz brushed aside suggestions that both countries would now be denied an opportunity to inject fresh momentum into their relationship. He said he and Macron “meet almost every week, and don’t just call each other”.

Asked whether he feared Germany could experience the same kind of riots as France, he said that was out of the question.

As proof, he cited the “winter of discontent” predicted by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) last year, when Russia suspended gas deliveries to Europe, but which never materialised as the government took the necessary steps to shield people.

“Germany has a culture of social partnership that stretches back a very long way, as well as . . . an effective welfare state and a good economic future,” Scholz said.

Chart du jour: Divergence

Poverty rates for children in immigrant households are twice that of children in native-born households in more than half of all EU and OECD countries. Read more in the Datawatch column.

Pedal politics

Does riding a bike make you leftwing? In Spain, where voters are shifting rightward, there’s reason to think the answer is yes, writes Barney Jopson.

Context: Conservatives made big gains in local elections in May, with the main opposition People’s party allying with the hard-right Vox to take control of several city councils. Some of the new rightwing city governments are targeting cyclists with a policy that’s set off a new culture war on the elimination of bike lanes.

In Elche, a town in Alicante province, two bike lanes are being scrapped because they are “causing a lot of traffic jams and problems with buses and ambulances,” said PP mayor Pablo Ruz. Other lanes (but not all) are set to be closed in Valladolid, Gijón and Palma de Mallorca.

This could be a harbinger of things to come. If the results in Spain’s snap general election this month are similar to the May vote, Vox could become the first ultra-conservative party in the national government since Spain’s return to democracy four decades ago.

For people on the left, the bike lane cull confirms their vision of rightwingers as car lovers who do not care about climate change.

But PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who has a good chance of becoming Spain’s next prime minister, says he has no problem with bike lanes. “On the contrary. I’ve been riding a bike for a long time,” he told the FT in an interview.

The PP’s only objection is to bike lanes that are badly designed or too short, he said. “What happens in some Spanish cities is that they make bike lanes that do not connect to the next street, or are on slopes that make it really impossible to use the bike,” he said.

Feijóo does not speak for Vox, which tends towards radicalism. But what mattered to him, he said, was doing things properly. “We’re in favour of pedestrianisation, bike lanes and public transport, but it has to be well managed, well planned.”

What to watch today

1. College of EU commissioners visits Spain.

2. UK foreign secretary James Cleverly attends meeting of EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly in Brussels.

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