PARIS (AP) - Excerpts from speeches by the leaders of former enemies France and Germany, Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, at events Sunday commemorating the centennial of the World War I armistice .
MACRON
“Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying ’our interests first, whatever happens to the others,’ you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it lives, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: Its moral values.”
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“I know, the old demons are resurging, ready to finish off their work of chaos and death. New ideologies manipulate religions, push a contagious obscurantism. Sometimes, history threatens to retake its tragic course and threaten our heritage of peace that we believed we had definitively settled with our ancestors’ blood.”
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“For four years, Europe almost committed suicide. Humanity had sunk into a hideous labyrinth of merciless battles, in a hell that engulfed all fighters, whichever side they were on, whatever nationality they had … 10 million dead, 6 million injured and mutilated, 3 million widows, 6 million orphans, millions of civilian victims.”
MERKEL
“This war, with its senseless bloodshed, showed where national arrogance and military hubris can lead. And it made clear what disastrous consequences a lack of compromise in politics and diplomacy can have.”
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“It’s anything but self-evident” that Germany and France should have such friendship now, “especially after the suffering that Germans caused to their neighbor, to Europe and the world in two world wars.”
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“The First World War showed us what kind of ruin isolationism can lead us into. And if seclusion wasn’t a solution 100 years ago, how could it be so today?”
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