“Lost Honour of the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition”

SPIEGEL cover story: The left-wing radical past of the German ministers Joschka Fischer and Jürgen Trittin has suddenly turned the nation’s half-forgotten Sixties and Seventies into a political issue. But right-wing cock-and-bull stories and left-wing pretences obstruct many people’s view of the wild epoch that came after 1968.

SPIEGEL interview with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, member of the European parliament for the Greens and friend of German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, about Fischer and the accusations levelled at his generation.

“Arguments Beyond Stones”

Undogmatic left-wing activists: Joschka Fischer’s assurances that petrol bombs were not among the instruments used in the Frankfurt squatters’ fights are beginning to totter. The testimonies of a former member of the riot squad to which Fischer also belonged, who gave himself up to the police in 1976, are leaving the vice-chancellor with a lot to explain.

New information about the sinking of the ferry “Estonia” in 1994, the biggest civilian ship catastrophe in Europe, in which 852 lives were lost. The cause has been much disputed.

“Zetsche’s Plan”

Automobile industry: The basics of the blueprint for Chrysler’s rejuvenation have been decided - factory closings, lay-offs and common platforms with Japanese partner Mitsubishi. Chrysler boss Dieter Zetsche has ensured that the painful cuts will be spread as equally as possible among his company and the suppliers, among blue- and white-collar workers, and the factory closings will affect the USA, Canada, Mexico and Latin America. However, the plan has one disadvantage: except for the cuts applied to suppliers, which have drawn protests from their ranks, none of the measures will bring quick relief.

The reorganization of the Deutsche Bank

“Priority for the Indians”

SPIEGEL interview with Mexican president Vicente Fox on the new democratic beginnings in his country, the conflict with the rebels of Chiapas and the country’s relationship with its powerful neighbour, the USA:

“The north is richer because it borders on the USA, the largest market in the world. We’re now trying to extend this progress to the entire country. The democratisation of Mexico began in the north too. … Our primary aim is to achieve equal opportunities for the Indians. … It’s not only a matter of jobs. I also want to give many people the opportunity of self-employment by offering personal loans. … We are negotiating a tax reform with the opposition. … It is enormously important to both sides, the USA and Mexico, that the flood of Mexican immigrants is legalised.”

“Downhill Path to Weakness”

SPIEGEL in-depth interview with the French Minister for European Affairs Pierre Moscovici on Franco-German tensions, the enlargement of the community and the vision of a future Europe:

“We have got to take stock of our relations clear-sightedly. And we also have to see how we can get the flywheel moving again. Strasbourg will be a first meeting in a process of establishing our relations literally all over again. … We have, all of us, behaved towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe like salesmen for illusions. We cannot turn back now, so we have to stop the hot air. If in the long run we create a Europe with two different speeds or several distinct leagues, the enlargement would in a sense be a fiddle. … If the enlarged Union were simply to become a large single market with no common rules and with no common policies, Margaret Thatcher and her ultra-liberal vision of things would ultimately have triumphed. In which case, the European Union would lose all interest for me.”

“We Are All Cowards”

SPIEGEL interview with French film star Juliette Binoche on painting, her love of the theatre and her new film “Code: Unknown”:

“He’s very courageous and there aren’t that many courageous film directors. Most of them coat the bitter truth with plenty of sugar icing so that the audience will end up feeling good. Michael Haneke, on the other hand, uses cinema as a vehicle for his convictions. … It’s a different matter to play the part of a historical character. When you are squeezed into a corset, it doesn’t only change the way you breathe and speak, but also the way you think. … In the very beginning I actually wanted to be a theatre actress. What I love about the theatre is that it always happens in the present. On stage there is an eternal now. … When I’m good, the movements on stage really are like a drawing in the surrounding space.”

“Doctor and Fireman”

SPIEGEL interview with Ferrari’s race organiser Jean Todt on his relationship with Michael Schumacher, Italian corporate culture and rumours of fraud:

“I love Michael, we work together excellently and have a friendship that is unusual in this job. But he is a rational person. He knows what I do and he knows what the others do. … Michael is the best driver. Countless drivers can manage a fast lap, but no one else is able to drive an entire race constantly at the limit as well as he does. … Ferrari is such a great challenge, that you can have the same goal twice. We are, after all, still the only racing team to build both the car and the engine. … I find it pitiful to make excuses for a failure by discrediting the winner. You have to accept the fact that someone else was just better.”

“Sleepless in Luxor”

Archaeology: He suffered from tooth decay and wrapped himself in women’s clothes, and he is regarded as the pharaoh with the greatest passion for grandeur. And yet Amenophis III is almost unknown today. Now the erstwhile despot’s burial temple is being excavated in Egypt. The ruins are breaking all the records.

“Gods in the Puddle”

Soccer: Brazilian teenagers still dream of a career as a professional football player, but mismanagement and corruption have ruined the magical game. Now parliament wants to clean up the sport. Soccer is never just soccer – nowhere in the world. But in Brazil, it lays bare the country’s soul. Now the organised ball game has become the game of Brazil’s thieving, nouveau riche society. The pitiful spectacle in Vasco’s Januário Stadium has dramatised the disease that is eating away at Brazilian society. This country, which smiled at itself in the magic performed by Pelé and Garrincha and Zico, is now peering into a dark mirror. And what it sees there is greed, contempt for humanity, amateurism, sloppiness and feudal high-handedness.