Helen Drake

The Europeanization of the French polity: continuity, change and adaptation

The Europeanization of France has accelerated reforms of French government and politics, and stiffened resistance to such reforms among public opinion and political elites. This article first evaluates the concept of Europeanization as a factor of change in comparison with other endogenous and exogenous pressures on French governance and public policy-making. It then systematically analyses the changes and reforms undergone in French decision-making and policy-making processes in connection with Frances membership of the European Union. Finally, it evaluates the capacity of the current (1999) French political leadership to manage Europeanization in a context of instability in the French polity and in French society. The article contributes to the growing literature concerned with political strategies for the domestic management of European integration.

Jacques Delors : Perspectives on a European Leader

Drawing on exclusive interviews with Jacques Delors himself, this comprehensive, accessibly written study of his life and Commission presidency is an invaluable resource for all those interested in European and French Politics. Debunking populist images and myths about him, this book presents a balanced examination of a widely misinterpreted political figure. This book also raises important issues such as: the role of individual leaders in contemporary politics the legitimacy of the European Union as a political system.

Political leadership and European integration: The case of Jacques Delors

European Community politics created new opportunities for political leadership. Leadership of the integration process was provided first and foremost by national political leaders, with the ECs supranational institution — the Commission — playing a supporting role. Jacques Delors was the first Commission president (1985–1995) significantly to redefine his role, and consequently to create a model for European, supranational political leadership. Analysing Jacques Delors’ discourse provides us with a methodological tool for understanding how he politicised the leadership role of the Commission, and to what effect.

The Politicization of Roma as an Ethnic “Other”: Security Discourse in France and the Politics of Belonging

Since the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union (EU) in 2007, the situation of the Roma community has taken on a much higher profile, forcing the EU to take action on its most marginalized and discriminated minority group. The increased attention on Roma issues has been caused by regressive policies that have targeted Roma in a number of EU member states leading to calls by Roma activists and human rights groups for the EU to intervene. This chapter focuses on the political discourse elaborated by French authorities during the summer of 2010 when Roma migrants were explicitly targeted, marked as security threats, and returned to their home states, notably Romania. The security discourse elaborated by French authorities transformed Roma into an ethnic “other” who did not belong in France and facilitated a context in which their expulsion could be understood. However, this initiative by and large backfired politically, and France found itself the subject of intense opprobrium from the European Commission, as well as numerous domestic actors. At the same time, this “French exception” created a crisis in the EU that hastened the elaboration of the EU Framework for National Strategies on Roma Inclusion in 2011 (hereafter “EU Framework”), effectively making Roma a member state responsibility.

Change and resistance to change: The political management of europeanisation in France

Abstract European integration poses dilemmas of governance for EU member‐state governments. Specifically, how are national leaders to manage the interface between ‘Europe’ as cause of change, catalyst for reform, and scapegoat for dissent? Some answers can be found in France, where Lionel Jospins government has embarked on a radical process of reconstructing French European policy and discourse with a view to incorporating ‘Europe’ into a broader political project of national renewal and reform. The governments goal is to relativise the significance of ‘Europe’ in the socio‐economic and political life of the country, in order to deflate its potential as a scapegoat for disaffected individuals and groups within civil society and the political elites. Conclusions drawn from the French experience since June 1997 provide a starting point for comparative research into the relationship, in the EU member states, between citizens, state, and the Europeanisation of domestic politics.

France: an EU founder member cut down to size?

Abstract French presence and influence in the twenty–first century European Union do not go unchallenged, and France is no longer the biggest of the founder EU member states. Accustomed to exerting power in the EU by means of political leadership, the use of the French language, and early influence over the EU’s administrative and legal architecture, France in 2005 sees the impact of its ideas diluted by numbers and by the import of new ideas, generations and cultures as the EU expands. President Chirac has gone some way to reverse the decline in French fortunes, principally through better Franco–German cooperation; and other voices in France have suggested how France might improve the quality of its EU presence. By voting ‘no’ to the Constitutional Treaty, France has shown itself big enough to hold the EU’s future to ransom, but lacking the influence to shape this future in its own image.

Jacques Chirac's Balancing Acts: the French Right and Europe

From the ‘strange affair’ of the 2002 elections to the calling of a 2005 referendum to ratify Europes new constitution, Europe has been as troublesome for Jacques Chiracs second term as it was during his first septennat (1995–2002). President Chirac inherited much unfinished European business from his predecessor, François Mitterrand, which created significant turbulence on the French right, especially within the Gaullist movement. This chapter reviews the evolution of Franco–European relations under Chiracs leadership, exploring in particular their political and institutional context and the balancing acts that the President has had to perform in his quest to maintain French influence in an enlarged European Union.

The European Fifth Republic

Of all the post-war transformations to have shaped contemporary France, the French role in la construction européenne is surely one of the most significant. Yet this was an accident of history: with the backing of the USA, without a viable alternative from the United Kingdom, and thanks to the ingenuity of its author Jean Monnet, Foreign Minister Robert Schuman’s declaration of 9 May 1950 was indeed a coup d’état against the establishment of the Fourth French Republic (Bossuat 48–52). His announcement took France into an unprecedented experiment in the voluntary sharing of decision-making power in the key economic sectors of coal and steel, under the authority of new, European-level institutions. There was no automaticity to France’s entry into these first communities; nor did the commitments of the early 1950s dictate that France would follow a linear path towards the integration of France into a European union. This was amply and very soon demonstrated by the saga of the European Defense Community (EDC) when France took one step forward, then two steps back from European military and political integration. Foreign Minister Georges Bidault’s assertion in 1953 that by means of the EDC, France could ‘‘faire l’Europe sans défaire la France’’ (‘‘build Europe without undoing France’’) was met by considerable skepticism, and France’s post-war rebirth as a pro-federal, modern European state thus proceeded on decidedly shaky domestic foundations (Bossuat 52). While acknowledging the economic opportunities that the European Economic Communities (EECs) offered the Fifth French Republic, President Charles de Gaulle emphasized arguments that had led him to oppose the EDC, namely his ‘‘certain idea of France’’ as being only herself in the first rank of

Country focus: France

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: DRAKE, H., 2014. Country focus: France. Political Insight, 5 (3), pp. 22 - 25., which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/2041-9066.12071. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

France and the European Union

On the evening of 6 May 2007, in a hoarse voice and to a crowd of youthful supporters chanting ‘Nicolas! Nicolas! Nicolas!’, the freshly elected President Sarkozy delivered a speech barely 13 minutes long. Half-way through he turned, rhetorically speaking, to address France’s European Union (EU) partners with whom, he declared, France’s destiny was ‘profoundly conjoined’. He reassured these partners that all his life he had been European, that he ‘profoundly and sincerely’ believed in la construction européenne and that ‘ce soir, la France est de retour en Europe’: tonight, he pronounced, projecting his persona to imagined audiences well beyond la Salle Gaveau in Paris, ‘France is back in Europe’. Even setting aside the hyperbole characteristic of such a unique occasion, the message was startling: from where was France to return? At one level, the comment referred to former President Jacques Chirac’s failure to ratify the EU’s Constitutional Treaty (CT) in the referendum he had called on 29 May 2005. That loss had blighted the remainder of Chirac’s presidency and damaged France’s reputation and, going on Sarkozy’s analysis, had created a void in European diplomacy where once France had been centre-stage. Here, as we will see below, Sarkozy swiftly and effectively repaired the harm, as he perceived it, by successfully negotiating and then ratifying the CT’s successor, the Lisbon Treaty (LT), as early as January 2008. The comment can also be interpreted more as a nostalgic reference to France’s historical record in building up the EU. During those 50 years, Presidents of the Fifth French Republic had become accustomed to leading their European partners by means of tangible influence on policies, structures and strategy; yet the EU enlargements of the post-Cold War era had gradually eroded French claims to lead the continent, and the lost referendum had dealt a serious blow to French claims to leadership. In this respect too, President Sarkozy set out to put France back in the driving seat, and the EU Council Presidency which fell to Paris in the second half of 2008 provided a perfect opportunity to do so. This was an occasion for France to set out its European policy in clear terms and Proof