Federico Bordonaro

“The number of people who consider French membership of the EU a good thing has fallen from a peak of 74 per cent in 1987 to 47 per cent last year”, Ben Hall reports in today’s Financial Times. “The reluctance of the parties to debate during the campaign reflects how French enthusiasm for Europe has soured into cynicism and indifference in the past decade”.
Such a process, however, is unfolding since some years. In 2005, after French voters rejected the proposed E.U. Constitution, this author wrote that political Europe was experiencing a paradox, in which “sovereignism” was gaining influence - particularly in France:

The historical context in which pro-sovereignty movements are gaining strength is a fairly paradoxical one. For instance, it is incorrect to say that “Europe does not exist” due to the result of the recent referenda, an argument that many in this movement are making. On the contrary, the European main states such as France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium — the “core” of the integration process — obtained, at least formally, the strategic goals they had set in the early nineties. The E.U. now has a common currency, functioning political institutions like the European Council, the European Commission, and the European Parliament, in addition to security and defense assets such as the Political Committee for Security, the European Headquarters, a secretary general for foreign policy, and even a Rapid Reaction Force.

At the same time, this complex political, economic and military framework does not work in the way some Europeanists dreamt it would, and the E.U. simply has not become what French visionary personalities such as former French President François Mitterrand wanted. In particular, today’s European Union is neither the source of a distinctly European vision of world politics, nor the political tool necessary to project French power in the age of globalization. If the international system is shifting from unipolarity to a proto-multipolar structure, it is because of China’s rise as a great power, and not because of the European Union. The E.U.’s dramatic division in front of the Iraqi crisis of 2002-2003 was the crucial proof of its weakness as a real global player.

The European paradox is exactly this: the E.U.’s official goals have been reached, but the outcome is quite different from what its main supporters expected 15 years ago.

Moreover, French citizens perceived that an enlarged Europe was not a multiplier of power and prosperity, but a huge market that exacerbated competition, wiping out the welfare state, i.e., the core of the so-called “European social model”.

Since then, the E.U. and the most pro-European parties in France have been unable to reverse the process. Enthusiasm for European integration has remained weak. However, no real alternative to the current path of integrationist policies has been effectively proposed. If the supranational model is in a crisis, so is the “Europe of nation states” advocated by the sovereignists. As a consequence, European elections are perceived as a not-so-crucial event by French (and European) citizens.