The romanticism and sentimentality in the relationship between Paris and Berlin is likely to vanish. It's the way it is with an old, married couple, although the established habits will remain in place.
I was never a believer in decline.
Political scientists have often described Gaullism as a sort of Bonapartism. I myself have occasionally compared Sarkozy to Napoleon Bonaparte.
One cannot build a future based on the description of a criminal past.
Those who claim France as a nation-state is obsolete are wrong.