Emmanuel Macron arrived in Berlin on Sunday for the first state visit to Germany by a French president in nearly a quarter of a century. He is seeking to ease recent tensions and warn of the dangers of the hard Right ahead of European Union elections.

Mr Macron’s plane landed at a Berlin airport at the start of a three-day, four-stop visit planned to emphasise the historic importance of the post-war relationship between the two key EU states.

France next month commemorates 80 years since the Second World War D-Day landings marked the beginning of the end for German occupation.

All has not been smooth of late in a relationship often seen as the engine of the EU, with Berlin taken aback by Macron’s refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine and said to be uneasy about his often-theatrical style of foreign policy.

In a question-and-answer session on social media with young people this month, Mr Macron enlisted help from Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, when asked if the Franco-German “couple” was still working.

Speaking French in a video on Macron’s feed on X, formerly Twitter, Scholz said:“Hello dear friends, long live French-German friendship!” 

“Thank you Olaf! I very much agree with you,” Mr Macron replied in heavily accented German.

While Mr Macron is a frequent visitor to Berlin, the trip is the first state visit in 24 years, after one made by Jacques Chirac in 2000, and the sixth since the first post-war state visit by Charles de Gaulle in 1962.

On Sunday afternoon, Mr Macron held talks with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose role is largely ceremonial.

On Monday, he will travel to Dresden in the former East Germany to deliver a speech on Europe at a European festival. Tuesday sees Mr Macron in the western German city of Munster and later in Meseberg, outside Berlin, for talks with Mr Scholz and a Franco-German joint cabinet meeting.

German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung took note of Mr Macron’s planned trip to eastern Germany, writing: “Franco-German relations, which are so important for European stability, have long been primarily a relationship with western Germany.

“This is still largely the case today. But Emmanuel Macron is driven by the ambition to change that.”

The trip comes two weeks before European elections, with polls showing Macron’s coalition is trailing well behind the far Right and may struggle even to reach third place, a major potential embarrassment. 

In his speech in Dresden, a city where the far-Right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has considerable support, Mr Macron is likely to warn of the danger the far Right poses to Europe.

In a keynote address on foreign policy last month, Mr Macron issued a dire warning of the threats to Europe in a changing world in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

He said: “Our Europe, today, is mortal and it can die. It can die and this depends only on our choices.”

Officials from both sides are at pains to emphasise that while there are periodic tensions on specific issues, the fundamental basis of the relationship remains sound.

But Mr Macron’s refusal to rule out sending troops to Ukraine sparked an unusually acid response from Mr Scholz, who said that Germany had no such plans. Germany also does not share Mr Macron’s enthusiasm for a European strategic autonomy less dependent on the United States.

Helene Miard-Delacroix, specialist in German history at the Sorbonne university in Paris said: “The Franco-German relationship is about disagreeing and trying to find ways of compromise.” 

Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at risk analysis firm Eurasia Group, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that relations between France and Germany “remain awkward, verging on hostile”.

He added: “On the big issues, little progress should be expected.”