It's no surprise, however, that the four instrumentalists were able to mesh so easily.

NPR: Newport Jazz 2008: The Monterey Quartet

Add to this a generation of officials and politicians on both sides of the Rhine who neither studied at each other's universities nor even speak each other's language and, despite the tight institutional mesh that still ties the two together, there is a sense that the Germans no longer need the French as they once did.

ECONOMIST: France loses ground to Germany