‘In response to Adenauer’s proposal, Marianne turns a beautiful but cold shoulder.’ On 7 March 1950, Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer grants an interview to American journalist Joseph Kingsbury-Smith in which he raises the idea of a Franco-German union. On 13 March 1950, German cartoonist Fritz Meinhard illustrates the lack of interest from the French authorities in this German proposal. France, depicted as a young Marianne wearing a Phrygian cap, remains indifferent to the advances of Federal Chancellor Adenauer, who is holding a bouquet of flowers, preferring to devote itself entirely to another suitor, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin.