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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, November 24, 2001

Chirac: French-German Motor Role Is Not Hegemony

The role of motor that Paris and Berlin wish to play in the European integration cannot be seen as a will for hegemony for it works well in pushing forward the process, French President Jacques Chirac said Friday in western French city of Nantes where the 78th French-German summit concluded in the afternoon.


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The role of motor that Paris and Berlin wish to play in the European integration cannot be seen as a will for hegemony for it works well in pushing forward the process, French President Jacques Chirac said Friday in western French city of Nantes where the 78th French-German summit concluded in the afternoon.

"The French-German motor sometimes irritates the people as if it involved a will for hegemony," said Chirac at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

"It is absolutely an other thing (than the reality)," said Chirac, explaining that hegemony implies that other members should yield to the French-German couple.

"It is proved by the experience that as well as France and Germany shared good relations, the European construction went forward. Otherwise, the construction just stopped," he said.

"The French-German relations have never been as closed and rich as in this year," he added.




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