For better or for worse France is a country with a strong, self-affirmative identity. For a long time it has been considered by French people as an asset, and it was difficult for French people to understand that they were not the center of the world. In recent years, the tendency is more to object that this identity is a drawback, and that France is a country incapable of evolution. The truth is probably somewhere between -it is globally a good thing to understand better the challenging diversity of the world, but it is morally a shame and politically a mistake for one of the richest countries in the world to regard itself as a loser in the contemporary competition. But whatever the truth might be, if any, an objective account of French identity in its relation to Europe has to deal with the contradiction of a strong national temperament and the building of an ensemble beyond the borders of the nation. The situation of French identity in Europe brings the idea of a hidden impact, giving birth to a feeling of benevolent indifference, involving to the very same extent a positive consent. Thus, apparent indifference is coextensive to a form of integration of European aspects into French identity. I will eventually sketch the limits of this integration. Thus, we have two sets of problems : a) identity issues must be opposed to the technical approach which is precisely used to avoid them ; b) when referring to French perspective upon Europe, we must make room for a dominant feeling of indifference.

 Indifference and positive consent

a) « Indifference »

Indifference (or rather a certain kind of indifference) is probably the most shared feeling about Europe in France. I do not mean that French identity is a closed one, that would never refer to a European construction that owes so much to French policies. I just want to underline how important it is to integrate into one’s outlook that Europe is not for the many a fascinating topic. Now, this should not lead us to assume that Europe does not pose real problems to France, neither that they should be ignored, or even that a day to day sociology should dismiss it as these kinds of questions that « elites » wonder about, but which do not concern « people ». It would not be fair neither for the « elite » questions nor for people perception. On the one hand, Europe should actually remain a most important political and even a technical issue, even if people were not really aware of it ; but on the other hand, such a conception does not allow any popular, identity-like perception of Europe. There is a direct causality between the tendency to set Europe as a technical problem, and the absence of reference to Europe in the day to day life of French citizens. Whatever your share of good will might be, it is difficult to be involved, when not a technician, in abstract and uninteresting discussions about « subsidiarity » for instance. Legal-rational justification just does not match, in this case, « justification in value ». And this, in its turn, does not mean that subsidiarity has no importance for the determination of identity ; but rather that what could be relevant to such a determination is just not underlined in technical and/or academic debates.

b) Popular representations

Indifference is not the absence of popular representations of Europe. Europe actually means something to people which is related to the identity issue. A hint could be those commercial prospectus from a supermarkets chain showing the motto « let us learn Euro » and translating prices from French Francs into Euros for the sake of their customers’ education to Europe. Marketing is a good clue : marketing never makes revolution, but seeks to fulfill the needs of consumers, and, so doing, sometimes accompanies true revolutions. That a supermarket chain should think that it is a good thing to advertise for European currency is in itself a modest but quite sure indication, that polls verify.

c) The absence of values

the most recent European achievement, the single currency issue, can analyzed this way. Favor is not fervor. People did accept Euro, they did not wish for it. This encapsulates the kind of relation we can see between our national identity and Europe. What I call « indifference » might also be a positive consent to what appears as an evidence. Euro was evident ; people tended to take it for granted. There was something hypocritical about the « great success » of the Euro. As a journalist pleasantly noted it, since there was no choice but to catch up, anything that cannot be avoided could be said « a great success ». Taxes are every year a great success, for instance. I might add that death also is, since the whole humanity displays a great conviction in systematically passing away. The adoption of a single currency was quite the image of Europe, and both a proof of and a limit to European integration : Europe is considered as something that exists, which is good, but not as a main issue involving a new political relation ; it does not range among the most important questions that my French citizens may have in common (and once again, how could it be since Europe is always presented as a solution ?). French political identity, and to a certain extent (in these ordinary phenomenons such as mentioning the prices in Euro even before the Franc had come to an end) social identity of French people, includes a concern for Europe. But it is not a supra-national Europe. It is more a « consequential » Europe : Europe as a political reality involving effects on day to day life. Europe is embodied into certain aspects of French identity rather than it is transforming it. That is exactly what I call « positive indifference » to Europe. It is precisely an attitude which consists in taking Europe as a set of concrete achievements, not as an ideal or a value, or as a process involving effects, not as a goal or a matter of political will. Quite awkwardly, but in conformity with the French political temper, the visibility of Europe is displayed more evidently in conflicts, than in this kind of disengaged, disinterested consent.

 Technical and political debates

European supporters too often tend to consider that people do not understand what Europe is and what it should be. I have once been said (the anecdote comes from Jean-Louis Bourlanges, a right-wing European deputy, and one of the most accurate analysts of the European situation) by one of my students that regulations about cheese - that brought France very near to revolution because traditional ways of making cheeses were threatened - were initiated by the French government. For this student, it was obvious that « people » did not get the intention right, and that they were wrong. I could only ask him what kind of decision it is, that is supposed to be made in your interest while nobody does really get the message. It is not sufficient that Europe should serve French policy. It must concretely mean it to people. Here a so called « French » interest did not appear to be so convenient because of the way European decisions are made. Realism is a true democratic quality : the fact that Europe is seen through the prism of its empirical effects on French life is a good thing, a better one than when it is considered as a global « rationality ». After all, this country that has long resisted the compulsory European white front car-lights and still is for this reason a this two-colored lights country, is quite decent a symbol for a multi-identity Europe. I mention car lights, I mention cheese (or rather cheeses). Those were won battles : the French government accepted that for a while cars could have either white or yellow lights, and regulations about cheeses were not accepted at a European level, after a demonstration in Brussels. I could also mention the Chocolate battle (It is now possible to call « chocolate » a product that is not entirely made of cacao, which was strictly forbidden under French law to protect consumers), that French lost. These seem very modest and tiny things, compared to the majesty of the political theory of Europe. But identity is made of little things - as the French philosopher of the beginning of the century Alain said, the difference between a shako and a képi already made a significant difference between France and French speaking Switzerland. They eventually form the picture of a nation, of a people or of a group. When President De Gaulle said that it was difficult to actually govern a country that had more cheeses than days in a year, he referred to this concrete identity that is made up of those tiny things that technicians tend to despise.

 France in larger or World in smaller ?

A way to avoid asking « ordinary questions » about Europe - those questions that arise when we deal with cheese, lights, or chocolate - is to keep reminding that Europe is no such trivial provider of regulation, but appears as part of a far more formidable scheme, called « globalization ». The difference is not always made between a limitation of the role of the state enforced by the creation of supranational authorities such as the EU’s, and a limitation that comes from market globalization. It is true that these two aspects are linked : after all, European authorities tend to share a vision of the world that is much influenced by liberalism and the EU is the first commercial power in the world. But in this case, Europe appears only like a supplementary factor. French political identity made of a wide consent to state action is on the line, but Europe does not really appear as such in this change : it is a « France and the world » problem where Europe does not stand as a specific way of dealing with it. In fact, the globalization issue steps back from a transformation of French identity into a more specifically « European » identity. Europe is part of the globalization process, with no real specificity. Another formidable issue about Europe, we are reminded of, is also peace and war among nations. For a long time, Europe has been either a goal or a solution : both were grounded on the awful experience of the world wars disasters. Europe was a piece of means in order to build peace, or at least to peacefully solve conflicts that had revealed their utter violence. President Mitterrand was not the last French political leader to ground his fight for Europe on the conviction that Europe had brought « forty years of peace ». But it is obvious that for a man of my generation, such a line of argument is not entirely convincing. Conflicts between European powers belong to the past, they do not seem possible any more ; we can hardly believe that nationalist furors had been so strong ; other challenges require us. I can see it in my personal experience when I think of my parents who have known the war. For them this part of their history, so strong when I was a child, faded away in the 80’s. Also, what remains of the memory of word war two has changed : it is obvious when we consider Maurice Papon’s trial or Touvier’s or Bousquet’s. The main issue of this memory is not nationalism any more, the strife between nations, but the racist implications of a regime such as the nazis’ that matters ; it is not the struggle of nations fighting one another but the historical traumatism that raises from the awareness that European civilization could entail the extermination of its own children. By being founded on a faded away memory of national clashes, Europe has become a solution for a problem that does not exist any more - war - as it is a part of a problem - globalization - that is not specifically European.

 Europe is a component of French identity

French identity does include a European component, but that is not at all the first step to a European consciousness. To be French is to be European, it does not really mean that something like the idea of a « European identity » is consistent. We certainly can say that there is a European part in French identity, which is based upon what I called the « positive indifference » to Europe. This leads to a natural integration in the French representation of European aspects as strong as the single currency, a wide consensus on what has been done, and a general agreement to go further on in the deepening of the links between European nations. It does not involve a federalist ideal, and it does not include for instance a supranational government, as polls show it. As a matter of fact, I would say that French people, in their majority accept Europe as a natural space for relations between European fellow citizens, but not as the space for a new independent power (the independence of a central European bank used to be not very well accepted). So the integration of European aspects is not the first step towards a European identity for French people. French people do accept to think that Europe is a component of French identity ; they are not ready to think that French identity is a share in a wider identification to Europe.