France and West Germany signed the Élysée Treaty, establishing a new foundation for relations that ended centuries of rivalry.

The Élysée Treaty was a treaty of friendship between France and West Germany, signed by President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer on 22 January 1963 at the Élysée Palace in Paris. With the signing of this treaty, Germany and France established a new foundation for relations, bringing an end to centuries of French–German enmity and wars.

France–Germany relations, or Franco-German relations, form a part of the wider politics of the European Union. The two countries have a long – and often contentious – relationship stretching back to the Middle Ages. After World War II, the two nations have largely reconciled. Since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1958, they have been among the founders and leading members of the European Communities and later the European Union along with Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium.

French–German (Franco–German) enmity was the idea of unavoidably hostile relations and mutual revanchism between Germans and French people that arose in the 16th century and became popular with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. It was an important factor in the unification of Germany, World War I, and ended after World War II, when under the influence of the Cold War, West Germany and France both became part of NATO and the European Coal and Steel Community.