It was also what happened to Helmut Schmidt in 1982, when the FDP broke away from its coalition with his SPD.

ECONOMIST: Germany��s government

There is nothing new about French pleas for lower interest rates nor, for that matter, about similar German pleas, which were common under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in the early 1980s.

ECONOMIST: The continent��s jubilant left breaks free

One of the architects of European monetary union, Germany's former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, meanwhile, derided critics of the euro, saying there was no reason to panic over such currency fluctuations.

BBC: Euro crashes below $0.87

The liberals and Social Democrats are old bedmates, having ruled together at federal level from 1969 until the liberals unceremoniously dumped the Social Democratic chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, in favour of the Christian Democratic leader, Helmut Kohl, in 1982.

ECONOMIST: Germany

Strictly speaking, Germany has been part of the West's big four since at least 1979, when Chancellor Helmut Schmidt joined America, Britain and France for a summit conference in Guadeloupe to discuss how to counter the Soviet Union's nuclear plans in Europe.

ECONOMIST: Germany comes out of its post-war shell

There would certainly be rows within the party, which some people reckon could be as fierce as those that rent it in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the pragmatic Helmut Schmidt was chancellor and the visionary Willy Brandt was chairman, even though much of the feuding then was over foreign and defence matters.

ECONOMIST: Lumbering to the finishing-post