German media reacted with amusement after the French presidential frontrunner François Fillon published a map in a campaign brochure that showed a divided Germany, 26 years after reunification.



“Something is wrong,” noted news channel N24, while conservative daily Die Welt pointed out “the embarrassing error in François Fillon’s programme”.

The Neue Presse saw a return to the cold war era and the days of the communist German Democratic Republic, writing that “in Fillon’s programme, the GDR still exists”.

F. Fillon, Aspirant für 2017, läßt per Karte im Wahlprogramm die DDR aus Ruinen auferstehen. Voilà Le Parisien https://t.co/uBlyt2W3mm pic.twitter.com/Uo0HLJo1e8 — Christian Wernicke (@ChrisCWE) November 22, 2016

“That would make Putin happy,” tweeted Reto Knobel, in a social media reference also to Fillon’s position of a new rapprochement with Moscow.

On page 59 of the policy booklet issued before next May’s election, a map of Europe shows a border splitting Germany into east and west as it did before reunification in 1990.

Fillon hopes to clinch the nomination for the Les Républicains party over the centrist Alain Juppé at the weekend.

If he succeeds, he is likely to face the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, in the knockout finals of next year’s election.

• This article was amended on 24 November 2016. An earlier version gave an incorrect date for Germany’s reunification.