PARIS — Listening to the candidates running for president in France, you hear descriptions of two very different countries called Germany.

Liberal candidates from the right or the left see the Germany that for the last 70 years has been with France at the heart of European integration. All that's necessary, they argue, is to repair the relationship that has gone astray these last years and Europe can hope to thrive again.

On the far right or the far left, candidates describe another Germany: the country that has forced austerity on its EU partners and that needs to be confronted — at the possible price of undoing the European Union.

“We French must restore trust with the Germans by enacting serious reforms,” said former Economy Minister and presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron in a speech at Humboldt University, Germany, last week.

Compare that to his predecessor, Arnaud Montebourg, who is competing for the Socialist nomination on an anti-austerity platform: “Germany will soon understand it cannot force its vision to the whole of Europe,” he said recently in a regional newspaper interview, reiterating a favorite line.

“The idea shouldn’t be to enact reform because the Germans want it but to reform because France needs it” — Jean-Pierre Landau, a former deputy governor of the French central bank

Or consider the utterances of Marine Le Pen, who in an October 2015 speech at the European Parliament, described French President François Hollande as Merkel’s "vice chancellor, administrator of the France province.”

The French presidential field is split on the German question in ways that have little to do with the traditional left/right divide. And whichever camp wins in France later this spring will determine the future of the German-French relationship, which in turn has shaped not just the EU for the past 60 years but European history going back centuries.

Diktats or reforms?

François Fillon, the candidate anointed by conservative party Les Républicains last November, has the same approach as Macron. Both men see economic reform as a necessity for Paris to become credible again in its dealings with Berlin. Only then, both have said, can the two countries finally see eye-to-eye on the best way to preserve and reform the eurozone and the EU as a whole.

Manuel Valls, the former prime minister who is trying to clinch the ruling Socialist Party’s nomination, has been less vocal on the matter but seems to share that view.

The other Germany described by both the far left and the far right rules Europe with an economic iron fist and has enforced economic policy “diktats” on the rest of the EU, becoming the sole beneficiary of the creation of the euro.

Listen to Le Pen, far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon or the left-wing Montebourg, and it’s easy to get the impression the French are tempted to elect a leader bold enough to take on Merkel, the steely empress of a pliant and submissive continent, and risk a split of the French-German axis.

“What should be clear is that advocating a confrontation with Germany essentially means leaving the EU,” said François Heisbourg, chair of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Mélenchon and Le Pen say they first want to present a series of demands to other EU partners, in order to amend EU treaties and give member countries more autonomy in economic policy. But scrap the niceties, Heisbourg said: It’s clear that the real goal is to go back to the French people, once those demands have been rejected, and suggest that an exit from the EU be put to a referendum.

Establishment in lead

Le Pen is currently ahead in the presidential polls — running neck and neck with Fillon. But she still stands little chance of winning in the second round. Macron, however, could edge into the second round and is seen by pollsters as having a shot at the presidency.

So while a cooperative line stands a better chance of winning the day, this approach to Berlin is also contested within the liberal camp.

François Fillon’s top priority will be to reassure Berlin that France won't be the next sick man of the eurozone.

“The best thing for French leaders would be to stop thinking once and for all that they will be able to convince Germany that fiscal transfers are the key to unlocking a bright future,” said Jean-Pierre Landau, a former deputy governor of the French central bank and a co-author of "The euro and the battle of ideas." The book, published last year, argued that there is a fundamental divergence between the French and German approach to the monetary union and Europe in general.

“The idea shouldn’t be to enact reform because the Germans want it but to reform because France needs it,” Landau said. “Then you forget about asking [for] things they will never accept anyway in the short or medium term, and you focus on other areas — and there are many topics to discuss together, such as the consequences of Brexit, the Trump impact on Europe or even things to do to deepen the eurozone integration outside the thorny issue of fiscal transfers.”

Pilgrimage to Berlin

The idea that there are now many topics other than the eurozone to discuss with Germany is slowly gaining among French candidates, most of whom accept that the country has a weakened hand after nearly a decade-long financial crisis.

Bruno Le Maire, the former European affairs minister who is seen as Fillon’s top choice for foreign minister, told POLITICO a few weeks ago that his candidate’s first priority, should he win, will be to restore the French-German bond. That can be done first by reassuring Berlin that France is not the next sick man of the eurozone and the country is intent on making the tough choices its economy requires, and then by working on boosting together both countries’ defense spending.

The Fillon campaign didn't exactly get off to a good start vis-a-vis Berlin: A recent campaign publication emphasizing the need to cooperate with Germany on the question of border controls was inadvertently illustrated by a map dating back to the period before reunification, showing the two Germanys, East and West.

If anyone took offense, it was quickly forgotten. Le Maire traveled to Germany last week to help prepare a meeting between Merkel and Fillon scheduled for later this month. Last Tuesday, he was staying in the same Berlin hotel as Macron.