BERLIN: The leaders of France and Germany warned of the dangers to democracy within their countries and from hostile foreign powers as they marked 35 years of German unification on Friday.
French President Emmanuel Macron was invited to take part in a ceremony marking the anniversary in the southwestern German city of Saarbruecken, where he described the threat of “a degeneration of our democracies” in a wide-ranging speech.
At the same event, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that “new alliances of autocracies are forming against us” and that “our liberal way of life is under attack, from both outside and within.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that ‘new alliances of autocracies are forming against us’ and that ‘our liberal way of life is under attack, from both outside and within.’
He said that European countries “must relearn how to defend ourselves” by “deterring our adversaries from further aggression.”
