The news situation is dramatic in this late summer, with a great deal at stake for international politics. The smouldering conflict between Russia and Ukraine also has geopolitical consequences far beyond the region. And in Afghanistan, the upheaval is being followed by a humanitarian catastrophe. In Europe, it is once again leading to a dispute over how to deal with refugees. The tasks are piling up for the European Union's longest-serving foreign minister - but he is determined to keep this one appointment. "I'm exhausted," says Jean Asselborn on the phone one Sunday morning in August, "but we're doing this, it's important now."
"This" is a joint road bike tour that I have arranged to go on with the Luxembourg Foreign Minister. The top politician not only wants to get on his bike, but apparently also has a great desire to make a story out of it that portrays him enjoying his favourite hobby. A few days before the event, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier singled out his Luxembourgian friend in an interview as a top politician who is particularly keen on sport. In any case, the 72-year-old is unique: who else combines so many political accents with active cycling?
Kiev, Brussels, Bonn. It's not easy to find a gap in the Foreign Minister's diary. But it is even more difficult to find a gap in the weather forecast. It's not as if Jean Asselborn only travelled when it was sunny. How else would he have clocked up the 9,000 kilometres that he collected on his Garmin in the first eight months of the year? But he is a media professional and knows that it is not only the inner experience that counts, but also the outer images that are created. Besides, it is simply much more beautiful in the lovely hilly landscape of Luxembourg, which Asselborn would like to show his visitors. "I think we have some of the most beautiful cycle routes in the whole of Europe here in the Eisch Valley and the surrounding area."
The cleaned bike is ready
When the day for the joint trip arrives, the minister can hardly wait. The appointment is set for 11 a.m., the journey takes six minutes longer due to the traffic chaos in flood-damaged western Germany - but at 11.04 a.m. he sends a text message to check that everything is OK. When we arrive, the minister is already looking out of the window on the top floor of his house in the small town of Steinfort, a stately building from the 1990s, the garage is open, the polished black and red racing bike ready. Asselborn whistles as he comes downstairs, greeting visitors with a sporty Corona fist. It's an appointment that he approaches with positive energy. A nice change from everything else he does under pressure. He has just finished a long interview with the daily newspaper "Die Welt" - it was tough, groans the veteran. As so often, it was about refugees, this time from Kabul, and Asselborn is fighting for their admission to the European Union, as he has been doing for many years. But he knows that this battle is difficult, perhaps unwinnable.
Fit for office
Coffee in the living room, a casual chat to warm up. Asselborn is already wearing cycling shoes and a red sports jacket over his jersey. When I use the word "masochism" to describe a characteristic of cyclists, the politician laughs. The ability and even the desire to suffer is part of the hobby for many cyclists, at least on special days, and the minister knows this too. But the sport also relaxes him. "To do this job, you have to be physically fit, you have to find a balance. You often don't sleep well. That's why you shouldn't drink a lot of alcohol," he says. His secret recipe to support the metabolism after getting up: Water with apple cider vinegar and honey - or, more recently, the French dairy product Faisselle, a kind of cream cheese, with honey. It's good for him, he says. And the cycling sessions when he gets off the plane are just as good for him.
He always emphasises that sport means a lot to him. As a child, he was mesmerised by French-language radio reports on the Tour de France and rooted for the Luxembourg Tour winner Charly Gaul. Over the years, he forged close bonds with professionals from his country, especially with Andy Schleck. There is a photo in the Asselborns' cellar, taken in Palma de Mallorca, showing the two of them. The politician lobbied the then French President François Hollande until Andy Schleck was finally presented with the porcelain vase that Tour de France winners traditionally receive at the end of 2014. Schleck had moved up to first place on the 2010 Tour podium after Alberto Contador's disqualification, but the Spaniard had not handed over the vase.
The two famous compatriots have not yet managed to cycle together. The Foreign Minister generally cycles around three quarters of his routes alone, but he also has regular cycling companions. Sometimes he meets up with two men from his neighbourhood, sometimes he makes an appointment with a friend and they meet halfway. But Asselborn's busy travelling schedule often only allows for spontaneous tours when it suits him.
"If I can no longer ride my bike, I'm out of the oven," Asselborn is quoted as saying in his biography "Merde Alors!". But is it appropriate to get on a bike in such a dramatic world situation? Shouldn't the minister only be thinking about serious issues? "That's where people break down," he whispers, then says louder: "Those who only have politics on their minds are going round in circles." Sport offers him balance, regeneration and the opportunity to refocus.
Climbers from the working class milieu
Asselborn speaks with pride about his career - a career that matches the endeavours of cycling. He left school early, worked at the Uniroyal tyre factory, soon after as a civil servant in Luxembourg and then in his home municipality of Steinfort, where he later became mayor. Along the way, he crammed until he had his university entrance qualification at the age of 27 and then studied civil procedure law in Nancy, France. Asselborn is a credible representative of classic social democracy, an up-and-comer with roots in the working class.
However, he discovered cycling quite late in life: in 1994, during the coalition negotiations with the Luxembourg Christian Democrats, he realised: "I thought that I was just going to sit, sit, sit. I wanted to do something about that," the politician recalls. At first he rode one of his two daughters' mountain bikes, but by 1995 he had a racing bike - and undertook his first long-distance ride in the summer: from Luxembourg to Fréjus in the French Alps. It was the start of a remarkable sporting career.
We are lucky with the weather, the sun even comes through and shines on Asselborn's bright yellow windbreaker. His skin is tanned, his legs remarkably defined. It is just over a week since Asselborn finished his annual summer tour on his racing bike. On the handlebars of his aero racing bike, a bag still bears witness to the adventure - and brings back memories of daily updates that the minister sent to around 2,000 people via Facebook. He has covered a good 1,000 kilometres through France, mostly alone. Asselborn has been doing such tours year after year for a good two decades, even if he has had to step in during political crises and interrupt the ride or have a stolen racing bike replaced. "This ride in the summer is the highlight I look forward to the most. But it also means that I have to ride all year round."
We cycle off at a leisurely pace in front of his house, between fields, down into the "Valley of the Seven Castles" - and chat without a break. It is a mix of questions and stories in both directions, lots of sport, private matters, but also serious topics - and even if Asselborn shows a cheerful disposition, his statements are unembellished and unfiltered. He is concerned about the old values of the Europe for which he fights so loudly in public - against Austria's government, but above all against those in power in Poland and Hungary. It's amazing to sit next to a member of the European government on a bike for a few hours without a filter and without personal protection. That would be unthinkable in Germany or France. Things are different here in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. "I have more freedom of movement and freedom of expression," says the politician. Only once, when the then US Secretary of State John Kerry, himself a keen road cyclist, went for a ride with Asselborn here in the west of Luxembourg in 2016, was there a considerable amount of security.
We pause at the Château d'Ansembourg to take a look at the historic walls and take some photos. The minister looks at his mobile phone. A diplomat from the Far East has expressed an interest in surplus vaccine doses, Asselborn calls a colleague, and a few sentences later the topic is underway. Then he checks his e-mails - and he's ready to continue. Today it's just a leisurely tour, we occasionally turn into a short climb. "But if you want to, you can quickly rack up the metres in altitude from the Ventoux," says Asselborn. It's been less than two weeks since he rode up Mont Ventoux again, as he does every summer, and he was lucky, the strong wind only arrived the following day. The mountain attracts him, the experience of riding a racing bike there is particularly important to him. "You realise how small you are. And every year you get smaller," says Asselborn. It is the humility that racing cyclists experience before the pass, a feeling that Asselborn addresses particularly often. You inevitably question yourself as a racing cyclist, he believes.
Jean Asselborn can no longer imagine life without this sport. He says that he often gets the decisive ideas for a speech or a political proposal while cycling. He learns to recognise his own tenacity and trains himself to persevere. And he enjoys the time in the fresh air. "I need the oxygen, which is why I cycle in the rain and sometimes even in the snow, even if it's just a short lap." When he gets off the plane, there's a gap in the calendar, a few days free: Asselborn pedals, collects kilometres, takes a deep breath. I rarely have the feeling that there is enough time at appointments with celebrities. But here, on this Thursday in Luxembourg, the minister seems to be taking all the time in the world.
But at some point it has to end. Jean Asselborn has brought his bike into the garage, past two framed newspaper caricatures of him as a racing bike freak, and says goodbye again with an energetic Corona fist. On the way back, I hear reports of explosions at Kabul airport on the car radio. It is an international crisis of enormous proportions. A few days later, Asselborn sends a message from Brussels, where he is representing his demands at the Council of Ministers. He thanks them for the wonderful day of cycling together. The "battle" with the EU interior ministers, he writes, demands more from him than three Ventoux. "Have to get through it," writes Asselborn. He has learnt how to do this often enough on the racing bike saddle.
