30 Years of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Two painted, inscribed fragments of the Berlin Wall. The left fragment simultaneously carries the commemoration inscription "30 ANS DE LA CHUTE DU MUR DE BERLIN – 30 JAHRE MAUERFALL". The Wall has been breached at the centre and jubilant crowds with raised hands pour through the gap. Three doves fly above, symbolising peace in Europe. In the background along the upper edge the Brandenburg Gate. On the right edge the French Republic's monogram "RF"; below, the year "2019" and the mint marks of the mint in Pessac, mintmaster Yves Sampo, and the rectangle of artist Joaquin Jimenez.

On the evening of 9 November 1989, the East German leadership, under pressure from massive waves of emigration and weeks of street demonstrations, opened the border crossings to West Berlin and West Germany. What followed within hours was not an orderly political process but a spontaneous movement of hundreds of thousands of people overcoming border installations that had shaped Berlin's cityscape and the lives of its residents since the Wall was built in 1961. The Berlin Wall was not merely a structure of concrete and barbed wire: it was the most visible symbol of the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe into two systems since the end of the Second World War. Its fall marked the beginning of the end of Germany's division and, at the same time, a turning point for the entire post-war European order.

France followed the collapse of the Eastern Bloc with a mixture of sympathy and strategic caution. President François Mitterrand and his government initially reacted with reserve to the events of autumn 1989 - France feared that a rapidly reunified Germany could upset the European balance of power. Nevertheless, France remained closely involved in the diplomatic processes leading to German reunification in October 1990: the Two Plus Four Treaty, in which France participated as one of the four victorious powers, created the international legal basis for it. Franco-German relations, the foundation of European integration since the 1963 Élysée Treaty, were put to a new test by reunification, but ultimately found common direction within the further deepening of the EU. On the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, France issued a commemorative coin in 2019.