Two speeds

“In what does the European identity consist?” The question, posed during the Summer University recently held by COMECE (Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community) in Austria is one we could address to the French, fifteen months after their ‘no’ to the European Constitution.What do they know of the motives at the basis of the act of foundation of 25 March 1957 and the common ideal of the ‘Fathers of Europe’? The present generation seems to ignore them, because it lives in a different present, faced by the pressures of globalization and its social consequences. French public opinion regards Europe with suspicion, because it fears its bureaucracy and the decisions of Brussels. In contrast to its temporary interest in the Constitution, it does not seem to be very passionate about the structures of the institution. This was evident from its reaction to the transfer of the seat of the European Parliament from Strasbourg to Brussels, for reasons of thrift and efficiency. The presence of the Parliament in Strasbourg, in France, thus remains symbolic…In its attitude to Europe, as in many other sectors, France has difficulty in breaking with an historical status quo which for over half a century has weighed down on her from an economic, educational, trades-unionist, social and even political point of view. The survey conducted by the Commission’s General Directorate for Communication in the period February-March 2006 is significant. As far as France is concerned, it reveals the pessimism of a country which no longer feels itself to be a leader, the fear of the dynamism of some of its partners, and the search for a European harmonization that would respect all its citizens, irrespective of their social class. But in actual fact the most chauvinistic Frenchman is becoming increasingly European. There is a Europe that he experiences every day, that is being realised in practice and to which he belongs, however consciously or not. There exists, for example, the Erasmus programme that not only permits student exchanges, but also fosters a genuine common culture of Europe. These exist journeys outside the borders of Europe that reveal to the Frenchman a deep cultural identity, even if the French are reluctant to call it Christian. There exist the English and the Dutch who come to live in the villages of Brittany and the Auvergne and who become “locals”, in spite of the differences in language, just as Portuguese and Italian immigrants have for decades become French, without breaking with their own roots. “The Frenchman, citizen of Europe”: this is slowly happening and the European dimension is already an integral part of his personality. In this sense, and in spite of this slowness, we cannot but be optimistic, because all this is indicative of a deeper reality than the phrases of the institutional discourses.The France of the TGV (high speed trains) does not travel so fast on the road of European integration. Nonetheless, irrespective of that vote on 29 May 2005, the French do feel themselves increasingly European.