
France has had enough of Germany’s bullying
There was one person missing in Paris on Saturday evening as France celebrated the resurrection of Notre Dame cathedral. The original guest list included Ursula von der Leyen – but the president of the EU Commission was a no-show. According to whom one believes, Europe’s most powerful politician didn’t take her place in the pew alongside Emmanuel Macron, Donald Trump et al because of what a spokesman described as an ‘internal miscommunication’. That’s the diplomatic take. The other story is that a ‘furious’ Macron withdrew von der Leyen’s invitation after she signed off the EU Mercosur trade deal with South America on Friday. Struck with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and
