ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes forms, the historical importance, and the logic of the symbolic practices. It presents more details of the semiotic (the form) and the semantic (the content) elements of the "amity symbolism". The chapter expresses that specialists diverge when assessing the political signification of those practices. It also expresses that this political symbolism did not revolutionize the course of history but, nevertheless, modified the "common sense" – to speak like Gramsci – of Franco-German relations. The chapter reviews the factors which have contributed to these ambivalent but nevertheless remarkable effects. It focuses on the mainstream periodization of Franco-German post-war relations by distinguishing three timespans: the conflictual aftermath of the war, the pragmatic rapprochement (in the 1950s), and the emergence of Franco-German amity symbolism (in the early 1960s). Franco-German amity symbolism displays one third and last characteristic: its extreme degree of ritualization.
