PARIS — Emmanuel Macron is beginning to realize that the world is less harmonious than he wants it to be. And Angela Merkel’s recent experience is that German politics may be harsher than she thought.

The French president and German chancellor — who are meeting Friday in Paris for another of their now regular “working dinners” — are not in the same mood as they were almost a year ago when they announced to the world the start of a new, beautiful political friendship.

Both leaders remain keen on building a closer relationship and putting it at the center of a renewed European Union. But reality has sunk in, and they know it will take time — and a lot of effort and setbacks — before they can achieve anything.

None of this will show too much on Friday because “you can always count on [Vladimir] Putin to unite Europeans just when they need it,” as a French diplomat said. Both Macron and Merkel will reiterate their support for the U.K., in line with the statement that the four big Western powers (France, Germany, the U.K. and U.S.) signed on Thursday underlining Russia’s responsibility in the Salisbury chemical attack.

Other countries have sought to remind Paris and Berlin that the eurozone is a game with 19 players.

As for any steps France and Germany could take together or separately to sanction Russia and show solidarity with the U.K. that would go beyond mere words, both leaders are likely to remain cautious.

Macron may seize the opportunity to indicate whether he still plans to travel to Russia and meet Putin in May, as planned. The trip was already controversial in the context of EU economic sanctions currently in place against Moscow because of the war in Ukraine. After Russia’s chemical attack on European soil, it could look “more than shocking,” the diplomat said.

On Friday, Bruno Le Maire and Olaf Scholz, the French and German finance ministers, will also meet for the first time since the latter’s appointment. The eurozone reform Paris and Berlin have talked so much and done so little about in the last six months will be high on their agenda.

But gone are the days — from only two months ago — when both countries could confidently predict that they would come to a substantive agreement by June, each side taking steps to soothe the other’s worries.

France under Macron has started reforming in earnest. And Germany, listening to Merkel, seemed to be ready to agree to speed up things to build a more integrated monetary union. And the French government’s hopes seemed to be boosted by the participation of the center-left Social Democrats in the new German coalition government.

Goodwill isn't enough

The reality of national interests, however, has not disappeared just because of the goodwill of two well-intentioned leaders. And other countries have sought to remind Paris and Berlin that the eurozone is a game with 19 players. Furthermore, the Italian election earlier this month gave a new reason for concern to all those hoping for quick advances on the way to a closer monetary union.

Macron himself seems to have less time to devote to the grand European vision he outlined in a much-hyped speech at the Sorbonne last September. Domestic reforms are encountering the expected opposition from those who fear they may lose from them. There was unrest this week, for example, among both the unions of the national rail company he plans to privatize and the elderly whose pensions he wants to reform.

On substantial matters, each one of the specific eurozone reforms currently bandied about have two major political drawbacks. They lack the luster of grand ideas (“hard to make inspiring speeches about the banking union,” quipped a French Treasury official). And they are made of the kind of details where all the devils lurk; as much as they agree on big words, the French and the Germans are still divided on priorities and direction.

There is also this paradox: Eurozone reform isn’t part of the political debate in France, but Macron has made it a big political objective. In Germany, it has become part of the political debate, even though Merkel has shown only a polite interest in it.

Contrary to the German chancellor, the French president doesn’t have a political base to soothe on this particular matter. The only reason he wants some progress is that it allows him to tell the French that the domestic reforms he is demanding from them have a counterpart: the building of a strengthened monetary union to better shield Europeans from future crises. But it's doubtful that Merkel will decide this is the moment to give him that.

Meeting angry pensioners demonstrating this week, Macron asked them to “be patient.” That’s what the German chancellor will likely tell her friend Emmanuel.