‘Adieu, mon amour! “I have to go now. But I’ll be thinking about you all the time, Gerd …”’ On 24 November 2005, two days after the election of Christian Democrat leader Angela Merkel as the first female Chancellor in German history, German cartoonist Heiko Sakurai illustrates the French President’s regrets that the Chirac–Schröder duo has come to an end. In the background, the new Chancellor is sitting on a bench waiting patiently to meet President Chirac.