French President Emmanuel Macron hit the ground running Monday on his first full day in office by naming a prime minister from the center-right and then flying to Germany, where he and Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged to work together to undertake European reforms.
At home, Macron started to shape his government by appointing relatively little-known lawmaker Edouard Philippe, 46, as his prime minister. That made good on a promise to repopulate French politics with new faces and reinforced the generational shift under Macron, who at 39 is France’s youngest president.
Then, a large crowd outside the chancellery welcomed Macron to Berlin, with some waving European Union flags. Macron and Merkel were all smiles inside, and the German leader declared that “Europe will only do well if there is a strong France, and I am committed to that.”
Germany and France have traditionally been the motor of European integration, but the relationship has become increasingly lopsided in recent years as France struggled economically.
German leaders were hugely relieved by the independent centrist’s rout of far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the May 7 presidential runoff, and now they hope that Macron can deliver the economic upturn that his predecessors couldn’t.
Macron is the conservative Merkel’s fourth French president in nearly 12 years as chancellor.
Some media have dubbed the pair “Merkron” — a reference to the “Merkozy” moniker used for Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s conservative leader from 2007-12.
Merkel called for “new dynamism” in the countries’ relationship.
She said she was “aware of the responsibility, at a very critical moment for the European Union, to take the right decisions together.”