Over the last year, Groeninger, a German language teacher based in France, has been helping Macron to prepare for his state visit to Germany — the first in a quarter of a century by a French president.
The French leader learnt German in school but had turned to the language teacher, who also trained Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, to improve it.
Macron is keen to interact with Germans in their own tongue, Groeninger told AFP.
“He wants to reach and touch people through the German language,” said the teacher, who also helped Macron to prepare his eulogy for the late former German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble which he delivered before the Bundestag partly in German.
“People probably think that he just memorises everything. But he understands everything that he is saying,” said Groeninger.
EN DIRECT | Hommage à Wolfgang Schäuble. https://t.co/cIFLqf7zK8
— Élysée (@Elysee) January 22, 2024
Bread and cold cuts
In his younger days, Macron travelled twice to the western city of Dortmund on student exchanges.
“I would never forget the German Abendbrot (evening bread) — this tradition of not serving anything warm in the evening, but bread and cold cuts,” he once told his German biographer.
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Since then as French leader, Macron has made many more trips to Germany, including one to Hamburg in October, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz treated him to the local delight — fish sandwich.
Despite the culinary culture shocks, Groeninger said his student is not lacking in enthusiasm.
“He is an ideal student. He is receptive and really wants to do his best. He also has fun doing it,” said Groeninger.
But scheduling is an issue, said the teacher, who has to be at the ready in case the president has a spare minute to practice a bit more.
Before giving his first lesson, the teacher had doubts about correcting the French president.
“I was thinking, how am I going to interrupt him?” he recalled. “But I was surprised. He is a very nice guy.”
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As to Macron’s weakness in German, the teacher politely pointed to the “typical difficulties of the French to pronounce the H” correctly.
Key in the training is mouth movements, said Groeninger, who noted that “the French language activates only three muscles, the German a few more”.
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