Erfahrungsberichte
German-French meetings – Sessions franco-allemandes
“Possible Europe” has existed for quite a while, and I want to tell you about it: 53 years ago French and German students intending to become teachers, who were studying in Paris at the Sorbonne at that time, were gathering there in the catholic student community, became friends, and decided to meet regularly. This decision is still active. Since then these meetings have been held, one year in Germany, the following year in France. Of course the group has changed since then: Partners, children, friends, and now even grandchildren have joined. The group was and still is independent from institutions, parties and meanwhile also from confessions. Naturally, not many of the foundation members are part of the group today, but we are still about 30 persons on both sides. I have been a member since 1994.
The idea of the meetings is: being together, understanding each others` nations, lectures and discussions about interesting topics, sharing events of each others` lives, and getting to know a new region. In fact, the group has managed to meet only twice at the same place in 53 years. In the other years there were always different destinations between Lake Konstanz and the Baltic Sea, Rhine and Oder, the Alsace, and the Basc country, Normandy and Savoy.
The topics are dealing with social, personal, and economic problems in both of our countries and are prepared by our members themselves. Here are some examples of the past years: globalization, instruments of power, language and speaking, the youth and its future, media-power-morale, church and state, differences between Germany and France. Of course Europe was on the program, too: “Europe, a chance or a one-way street?” During a conference near Metz we were able to visit the grave of Robert Schuman.
This year we met in Essen, the cultural city of Europe. Our topic was dealing with the changes in life, which are especially important in the Ruhrgebiet: “Those who don´t change won´t survive.”
Meanwhile not all the members speak both languages, as it was in the beginning. But there are still enough who can translate, so that language is not a problem. We are always happy to practise the other language again and even learn new things.
Our group is open to people from other nationalities, too!
The older ones among us still know about war and hostility between our countries. Our meeting in the Ardennes 3 year ago painfully reminded us of it. How good is it now to live a German-French friendship in this group
Naturally, it is much easier to communicate today, because most of our members – in spite of their age - dared to use the internet. So there is much more contact during the year, information is transmitted fast, and the euro is helping to make paying the costs for our meetings easy across the border.
The two pictures were taken on 3rd August 2009 when we visited the Ruhrverband Essen. Our oldest member at the far right is 84 years old, the youngest is 8 years old and came with his parents and grandmother. For the next year the French have already proposed a new place: Orsay near Paris. And the Germans have proposed a place in the Harz for 2011. Europe is not only possible but real, and this hopefully for a long time.
More information see www.antooine.de/paix, the homepage of one of our members.
Wenn sie mit dem Autor/Autorin des Textes in Kontakt kommen möchten, wenden Sie sich bitte an leserbrief@europa-erleben.net
