With radical Islam the latest addition to the European terrorist ecosystem, similar discussions are taking place in how best to counter it – particularly in France, which has recently witnessed the murder of French teacher Samuel Paty. Eighteen-year-old radical Islamist, Abdoullakh Abouyedovich Anzorov, is the person responsible for the murder, and the fallout from the crime is still reverberating in French society and politics.

Islam and radicalised communities

The radicalisation of Muslim communities living in Western European countries has deep roots, with old and new grievances and problems contributing to explain the phenomenon. There is little doubt, however, that the most recent shock to the system came from the deteriorating situation and spillover of the Syrian Civil War in Europe. This allowed terrorist groups like ISIS to weaponise modern technology such as social media to radicalise young Muslims in Europe, as well as key people in their communities – such as imams.

The turmoil surrounding the Syrian Civil War and its dislocations has allowed radical groups to establish an ideological foothold in Europe. This radicalisation has triggered episodes of brutality in the streets of cities across Western Europe, with the murder of Samuel Paty setting a sad record on the scale of violence.

The murder of Samuel Paty also broke precedent on such incidents, as it seems that the murder was not strictly motivated by adherence to a radical Islamic movement, but due to sheer intolerance of different opinions, with worrying implications for the prospects of Islam in Europe. This fact also raises concerns over the overall European approach to radicalism, which is essentially laissez-faire, “let-it-be until public opinion turns against it”.

When that switch does happen, responses tend to be knee-jerk and based on populism and stoking anger, rather than mending wounds. It is apparent that this approach simply doesn’t work and the philosophy behind it is fully illogical: central governments voluntarily choose not to use their tools and deliberately ignore the problem of radicalisation, until the popular mood turns so sour that putting forth sensible policies becomes impossible.

Western European states need to find a way to mitigate radicalisation within their Muslim communities. Needless to say, they equally need an effective strategy to defang extremism across the political spectrum, and the rise of right-wing extremism, in particular, poses a serious threat to the future of democracy in countries such as Italy and France. These movements have greatly capitalised on the dislocation caused by the battle against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and have repeatedly made breaches into the mainstream by building their political narrative and cause around these questions.

As mentioned, however, the roots of radicalisation go deeper than just ISIS. Muslim communities in Western Europe were already marginalised and treated as a dangerous foreign community. This marginalisation has deprived people of a sense of belonging – belonging to the country that they were born in, and where they’d spent the majority or entirety of their lives. The insular mentality this has triggered has greatly amplified the power of fundamentalist imams to radicalise their communities. Any effective real-world solution which at once addresses the issue and combats the populist, far-right perspective of the matter, will have to go straight to the root of the problem – and look at successful examples of social cohesion.

A real-world example

The Greek Muslim community living in Western Thrace, on the border with Turkey, is a success story with many lessons for policymakers looking for inspiration. This region has a large Muslim community from a mixed ethnic background, coming at around 33% of the population. The minority enjoys several protections to guarantee an even keel with the Greek majority, including constitutional guarantees of non-discrimination, and political representation.

But where the integration process truly shines is in education: a dense network of minority schools provide education in Greek and Turkish. The schools are state-funded and aimed at minority students, with distinct curricula based on the unique social and cultural context of the local communities. Imams and religious scholars participate in this educational effort, which includes elective secondary education in religious studies in Turkish, and the Quran in Arabic.

This network includes two high schools, located in Komotini and Xanthi – where the concentration of Greek Muslims is highest. Public transportation for students living in isolated, rural or mountainous areas is subsidised by the state, to ensure no one falls through the cracks of the system, and Islamic theological seminaries are available for interested students, with an equal footing with Orthodox seminaries before the law. Additionally, 0,5% of slots in national higher education institutes are reserved to members of the Greek Muslim minority.

This set up has succeeded in keeping radical Islam out of the picture, and unable to get a foothold in a community that sees this arrangement as largely equitable. There are issues, of course. A particular point of contention is the appointment of muftis – currently split between the state and Greek Muslims, with a mufti appointed by the former and another elected by the latter. Controversies regarding citizenship clauses and the ethnic composition of the community are still existent. But these pale in comparison with the fractious relationship between Muslims in Western Europe and their countries.

Western Thrace offers a model for peaceful coexistence far removed from the far right’s cries for deportation or worse. State-funded mosques, a special curriculum in areas with high percentages of Muslims and positive discrimination measures would root out radical Islam and its ideological narrative. If we want to see things to change, we need to take real action and implement real strategies to properly assimilate the Muslim communities and root out the far-right’s rhetoric of radical Islam in Western Europe.

Guest article Aggelos Tzitziras. The author is an 18-year-old university student living in Heraklion, Greece, Member of the Greek Youth Parliament (2017-2018), and Press Secretary of the think tank Symmaxia (Alliance).

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Eurobonds By Any Other Name

The current EU budget has a very restricted ceiling: it’s capped at 1% of the EU’s GDP. This puts severe limits on how effective, bold, and ambitious the EU can be with its policies even at the best of times – and a global pandemic is far from that.

This is where the Franco-German proposal comes in. In a surprising break from past timidity, France and Germany have proposed an increase for the EU budgetary ceiling for the next three years – raising it to 2% of GDP. That extra 1% would amount to some 165 billion Euros a year, for a total of 500 billion. Crucially, it would not be covered by Member State annual contributions: it would be debt, which the EU can issue in its own name.

This is critical in a number of ways. First and foremost, it means that this new debt would not show up in Member States’ national accounts. This would massively help Member States with low credit ratings and intractable debt problems, such as Italy. Secondly, it builds on a mechanism the EU can already use. Brussels is already allowed to issue debt, but for very limited purposes – typically, to support Member States with economic difficulties or to intervene on the balance of payments. What would change with the introduction of the Recovery Fund is that the sums of debt the EU is allowed to issue would be much larger.

Most fundamentally, this gives the European Commission a political backing and mandate it desperately needed to act. The issue of economic reconstruction is now being reframed as a European problem, not one restricted to the national economies. Technicalities still need outlining: we don’t know how new EU debt will be distributed among Member States, how reimbursing will work out in practice, and whether the system will become a permanent feature of EU policy-making after its expiration, three years from now. But the political commitment is serious. The word “Eurobond” was never mentioned in Franco-German press releases. Ultimately, however, that is what’s at stake right now – and the EU’s financial solidity with it.

The Bad News

It is, perhaps, depressing that this proposal is coming from the two largest Member States in the EU. But this should not surprise us, nor overly concern us. It’s no surprise, because the bitter truth is that the EU is still a low-trust political environment that Member States will only countenance so long as they feel they are in charge. The system can only truly be altered by them, by design. However, some of the claims made in the public debate – that Germany and France are going behind the Commission’s back, for instance – are wildly exaggerated. The Commission strongly endorses the initiative, and was kept informed of its development at all times, as were other Member States.

Claims that this is an undemocratic decision process are also off the mark. In order to become policy, the Fund will need approval from the parliaments of every Member State in the European Union. Naturally, the truly ideal option would be to give the European Parliament the final word. That scenario remains remote, at present. But that doesn’t mean that France and Germany have hijacked European decision-making.

The bad news is that several remain opposed to this scheme. Austria, the Netherlands, and Finland have already voiced their opposition. While Macron and Merkel were telling the press that France and Germany were standing up for Europe and that extraordinary times required extraordinary measures, Austrian chancellor Kurz took to Twitter to dampen enthusiasm for the move. The Visegrad countries have not shown their hands yet. It’s likely that they can be convinced to support the move. What price they will demand remains an open question.

There is a further element of uncertainty: what is going to guarantee repayment? The answer is vital, because the EU having solid credit and market confidence is fundamental for this plan to succeed. Since the Recovery Fund is not part of the Treaties, debt will require purely political backing. The EU needs to make credible commitments to debt servicing and its own financial soundness. This is certainly doable, but it does make the European credit position more volatile with an eye to the future.

The Good News

The need for unanimous approval on the part of the Member States is politically cumbersome, but it also solves a legal problem. The German constitutional court will not have jurisdiction over EU fiscal policy that is cleared by the German parliament (along with its other 26 equivalents in the EU).

The best news of all, perhaps, is that France and Germany are taking the EU seriously again. There is perhaps some reason to hope that the lessons imparted by the 2012 Euro debt crisis did not go unheeded. Paris and Berlin have both recognised the gravity of the situation and the necessity to take the initiative. The ability for the EU to issue its own debt in large scale is a transformative event.

Henrik Henderlein, an economist who serves as director to the Jacques Delors Centre, has labelled this the European Union’s “Hamiltonian moment”, a political signal that “the EU is more than a grouping of nation-states, and has its own federal identity.” Should the Recovery Fund become policy, it might be the EU’s real, first step towards statehood. It will be up to Member States to make that happen. Now more than ever, we need national capitals to rise up to the challenge, be brave – and take the plunge.

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The Left – Right Divide

The most violent opposition to the French revolution internally came from the Vendee. These peasants and their lords were to the political right of the Girondins and even further right of the constitutional monarchists in the National Assembly. They were the main political opponents of the revolution. The Vendeen opposition was: monarchist, nationalist, Catholic, moralist, rural, and anti-democratic, which are many of the characteristics retained by factions of the modern French far right. The Jacobin left, leading the revolution, were: egalitarian, internationalist, anti-clerical, libertarian, urban, cosmopolitan, republican and democratic. These are characteristics embraced by the French left today. The conflict in the Vendee was so bloody, that some historians have called it genocidal.

The “Citizen”

The conception of “citizen”, introduced by the revolution, sought to replace the “French identity” clung to by the Vendeens. Derived from the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen de 1789 – this set of principles was adopted as the basis for the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man. This was followed by the UN Charter a century and a half later, and two years after by the European Convention. The concept of “citizen” was anchored in the “equality” of all men. Rights and duties of “citizens” were specifically addressed.

The citizen was “he or she who participated in the civic community, consequently spoke French, and respected French laws”. This concept broadly defined, while often breached in practice, did allow France to extend citizenship to its overseas possessions along with voting rights. With this, France differed fundamentally from the United Kingdom and other colonial powers. This was indeed a “revolution”, a simple Haiitian being the equal of a French king.

Nationality vs. Identity

The concept also differed fundamentally from that of “nationality” more common in other countries and closer to that of the Vendeens. French “nationality,” or what has now become “identity,” for the Vendeens was reserved for those with generational French roots, tied to the soil and the feudal web that defined their belonging to the nation. Whether their overlords were Normands, of several hundred year’s residence, or more recent Norman-Saxons claiming the crown, their French “identity” or “nationality” though ill-defined, was acquired with the feudal tie to the soil.

The revolution was victorious against the Vendee but was immediately challenged again by the armies of the united monarchies of Europe. These monarchies, not quite as ideologically rooted who were mostly concerned with power, still presented a challenge from the right which sought to retain the feudal order. Victorious but continuing to be under threat the following century was to see France swing to the right and then the left, as these competing visions struggled for power.

Through the Empire under Napoleon, the Restoration under Louis-Phillipe, Napoleon III and numerous Republics; the original schism was contested over and over. Still the vision of equality and universal citizenship at the heart of the revolution remained the dominant one through most of the period. In a nod to the progressive values of the revolution, Louis Philippe, the monarch of the restoration, was even called the ‘Citizen King of the French’, instead of the ‘King of France’. 

Continuity Amidst Change: The Far Right in France

Today, many of the traditional political formations in France have transformed into unrecognisable hybrids. It is somewhat remarkable then that the dominant party of the far right retains an unbroken history as a party. That history dates back to its founding in 1972 as the National Front,  which has now changed its name to the National Rally. Its ideology, with some differences, goes back to the revolt in the Vendee.

The very complex history of social-political movements of the far right in France could easily fill many hundreds of pages without even scratching the surface. This history is not lived with anything like encyclopedic knowledge by most French men and women but rather subconsciously, if at all. There are several places, where this political and social history intersects the daily lives of the French: 1) political and governing institutions; 2) media; 3) social organizations; and, 4) community. We will focus on some of the more salient points of intersection, highlighted – as well as some less accessible ones.

Political: The National Rally (RN), a Far Right Story

The Nationally Rally, originally the National Front, was founded in 1972 as a far right political movement by Jean Marie Le Pen, an ex-combatant in French Indo-China and Algeria. It was in this latter war that right wing elements of the army attempted a coup d’etat to prevent then president, General De Gaulle, from holding a referendum allowing for Algeria’s independence. The FN was the direct successor to another right wing movement Ordre Nouveau (ON) with its feet firmly in the fascist camp. 

These movements had similar roots: persons, ideologies, organisation in the pre-war fascist extreme right. Some pre-war movements like Action Francaise ended by being banned and their leaders, Charles Maurras, imprisoned after the war, or the journalist and writer Robert Brasillach, executed for collaboration. These movements were rabidly anti-semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-freemason and anti-democratic. They called themselves fascist and used fascist symbols so we will not hesitate to use the term in their case. In some cases like Maurras they were anti-Nazi but pro-Vichy. In others , like Brassilach and the review “Je Suis Partout” collaborationist.

The FN and La Cité Catholique

At its founding the National Front clearly embraced these extreme positions. It is this history that, despite attempts to distance itself from its origins, causes many French people to remain skeptical and refuse to vote for the FN, regardless of any sympathy they might have for their now more moderate stance. Less extreme currents of the French right were also present in the FN and remain. However, they have become more marginal with time.

Catholic integrists, some monarchist and others republican, have since Vendee been a feature of the French right. While some Catholics embraced the extreme anti-semitism of Maurras and his followers, others did not. La Cité Catholique, an extreme Catholic movement, influenced many of the pro-putsch generals who wanted Algeria to remain French. Many French Catholics and their institutions were, however, staunchly republican and democratic. However, they tended to have a nationalist and identitary approach to politics. This Catholic right is not uniformly liberal or free-market, but often in a Gaullist or Christian Democratic vein, supportive of broad based social programs.

Family Matters: Marine and Marion Marechal Le Pen

When Jean Marie Le Pen’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, took control of the party, she began its re-orientation away from the anti-semitism of her father. She also refused an attempt by neoliberal elements within the party to move it to the right on social issues and insisted on its outreach to working French. While this has certainly helped increase the party’s popular base, the party’s failure wherever it has been elected to effectively manage municipal or departmental governments, has hurt its reputation in the economic sphere.

While the more moderate social stance of Le Pen’s daughter might have made the party more popular with moderate Catholic integrists, the conservative Catholic movement was severely weakened when it principal leader, Monsignor Lefebvre, was excommunicated in 1988 by Pope John Paul II. The ensuing Church schism shocked the conservative French Catholic world, leaving it leaderless.

While Marine Le Pen remains the RN’s leader and in control of its political platform and responsible for its name change, her niece Marion Marechal Le Pen has shown political ambitions of her own. With roots among Catholic integrists, she has developed ties with international populist movements and the alt-right. A champion of “identitaire” politics she has relations with international populist figures like the American, Steve Bannon or Italy’s Matteo Salvini. She is a potential political force, though for the time being has managed to remain under her aunt’s wary chaperon.

Lacking Orientation

The RN reached a one-time ceiling of about one-third of voters in French Presidential elections, doing less well in local and European contests. The party does not seem to have built the stable of qualified personnel capable to compete and govern beyond its leadership.

Applying Umberto Eco’s definition of fascism, the party in its current political orientation lacks some of the principal features of fascist movements. While the cult of an all powerful leader is in partial evidence, other traits like anti-intellectualism, anti-scientific bias, machismo and misogyny, belief in war as a permanent state and propaganda replacing political discourse, seem much less apparent.

Political: The Alt-Right and the “Identity Generation”

The alt-right is defined by elements of right wing politics that reject fascism and Nazi affiliation and prescribe a peaceful path to their eventual rise to power. While the RN has deep roots in the traditional parties of the right, Marion Marechal and, younger elements of the party, have associated themselves with, courted and sought to lead the alt-right both in France and Europe.

Identitaire politics and replacement theory affirm that European identity should be the primary European political focus and that, in opposition to a European renaissance, low birth rates and immigration represent a deliberate attempt by the elite to replace European populations with those of the third world. The group Generation Identité, with affiliates throughout Europe, has been a prime mover in furthering this philosophy.

“Identitaire” Politics

How the elites manage to influence millions of private natality decisions by women and their partners is not clearly addressed by the theory. They point to LGBTQ rights, acceptance of an alternative lifestyle and de-emphasis of family values by the left as root causes. These theories have been developed in France with its usual flair for abstract thought and spread throughout Europe with local variants. On the European level, ties between groups are tenuous though being constantly rewoven to fit changing circumstances.

Though alt-right and identitaire groups distance themselves from fascism and Nazism, they manifest considerably more fascist markers than the RN, the main right-wing movement in France. The fundamental desires of their members may be somewhat obscured by their official stances. An example of a latent tendency to violence might be seen in the attempted assassination of French President Chirac by an individual associated with far right groups who were subsequently banned. Though strictly more associated with the far right, the attempted assassin frequented the identitaire rock music scene. These groups, though organisationally separate, have a great deal of affinity and some ties.

Community: The Banlieu

The Parisian banlieu has, in recent times, been one of the principal locations of encounters between those seeking to become French and the hostility of those rejecting them. They have been called “no go” zones by the right, indicating the right’s actual or projected fear of these immigrants. Accusations regarding: high crime rates, the absence of police, supposed anti-LGBT biases, or mysoginist attitudes have been broadcast widely and are now staples of the unofficial debate on immigration. This is unfortunate, as objectively many of these assertions are based on false information. Experience of these communities may draw a picture consistent with most of the data. 

My family spent several weeks – summers from about 2005 to 2012 – in the Parisian suburbs, the Yvelines, living in Elancourt and visiting Trappes daily and La Courneuve (Seine-Saint Denis) to the north on a somewhat less frequent basis. Trappes and Courneuve, are considered “no-go” zones by the right and the socio-economic profile of Elancourt is not much different from either. We were guests of immigrant friends.

Contrary to all the views, we never had the least problem of physical security. We were welcomed into the very diverse communities who live side by side. These include: the majority French, Muslim, African and Vietnamese among many smaller ones. The twice weekly markets were special: the great variety of foods, clothing, wares and general pleasant ambiance made them truly wonderful experiences. Community monitors policed the market on a voluntary basis. There was never even a hint of a pick-pocket let alone more serious crime. At the time, as it has been historically, the Mayor of Trappe was a French communist.

A Sense of Togetherness

The communities there all get along well and frequent each other socially on a regular basis. The immigrant communities have lived the gradual change in the political climate over the years without excessive fear but with increasing awareness that some people no longer welcome them. Whereas, they still rally to the concept of French citizenship, invoked in the Universal Rights of Man, they increasingly see that many believe it is not meant for them. Still those French natives around them do their best to reassure them through their daily interactions. It is not these neighbors who share their travails and joys who consider them foreign. They celebrated along with everyone else in France when the French national team won the World Cup in 1998 and in 2018, with the highest percent of foreign born players of any European team. These are considered by everyone French triumphs.

A Target Nation?

At about 8.8%, France has the largest Muslim population in Western Europe. French soldiers are actively fighting terrorists in their former colonies, which in turn, has made France a target. French Muslims and their leaders have repeatedly denounced terrorism by Islamic radicals and come to the aid of Jewish synagogues whenever ostensibly far right groups have attacked them. There have been few attacks by Muslims against Jews.

The period of the 1970’s saw as much Muslim terrorism as today, though from national liberation movements not religious fundamentalists. These tragic occurrences did not change the universalist, citizen based, discourse of France. This is no longer strictly the case. The situation has gone from one where it was taboo in the late 1990’s to express racial animus publicly, to one where several French presidents, have made anti-immigrant remarks.

Community: Rural France

Space and familiarity limit our discussion to to the rural southwest, the region between Bordeaux and Toulouse. The region generally votes “red” or Socialist though hardly reliably so. The reasons for this are singular tragedies in the long history of such events in Europe. Adult children of emigrants from Mussolini’s Italy, such as northern workers, persecuted unionists or simply the unemployed and republican exiles fleeing Spain, represent a very large percentage of the population. Practically all are thoroughly French, speak no Italian or Spanish, and have very rudimentary knowledge of their family history. There must be some latent memory though as most still vote red. 

Recent immigrants to the rural southwest though, except for the numerous English with a second home, are rare, comprising less than five percent of the population in the towns and often only one or two elsewhere. They are plurality Muslim with other diverse representatives from: Mauritius, Reunion, Vietnam, etc. Being so few one would think that friction would be limited and people would have few occasions to form opinions but this was not the case. French acquaintances who deplored the not infrequent prejudices told me that they used to be rare, or at least hidden, but were becoming more and more prominent.

Far Right Voting Habits in the Southwest

Where there were second generation third world immigrants, and there were not many as most left for bigger cities, they were thoroughly French to the point where one could not tell them apart. One, Alain, was a descendant of “Harkis”, part of the Algerian Arab community who remained loyal to France in the Algerian civil war. The Harki were persecuted in Algeria but to the dismay of many, De Gaulle refused to help them escape after the war. Alain was so popular for his community work that he was considering running for mayor of his mid-sized town. Many wouldn’t realize he was of Arab origin.

The RN gets few votes in the area, unlike in other rural regions. However, there were a few French who voted RN and some in spite of having immigrant families. This was largely for economic reasons, as they did not believe the other parties were addressing their problems and hoped the RN would do so.

There is little real extremism of the left or right outside the big cities in the rural southwest of France. Even, or especially, the skin heads are generous and open-minded. Those of the region listen to Piaf, Ferre or Brel, as much as hard rock, and appear completely inoculated from the right wing politics of London, Paris or Eastern Europe. A picture of a region emerges which should be a paragon of harmony and idyllic rural life but for some reason the times have managed to instill fear and a degree of hate.

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Europe’s Nuclear Dilemma

All of this is of great interest to Europe, which has been a springboard for nuclear weapons for all of the aforementioned seventy-five years. Brexit, in particular, has brought the issue to the fore again. The departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union has been discussed in painstaking detail, and so have its many ramifications and consequences. One field that is often overlooked by the general audience, however, is the consequences Brexit is going to have on European security, and especially in one specific area of European security – nuclear deterrence. After the British departure, France is the sole EU Member State with nuclear capabilities. The situation is aggravated by Trump’s erratic and unpredictable foreign policy.

This is not lost on European leadership. For the past four years, the EU and its Member States have devoted an unusual amount of attention to the question of military integration. There have been more than just words, too. New common military projects, like PESCO and the European Defence Fund, have given a real incentive to cooperation between Member States. However, all these new developments primarily provide monetary incentives for joint defence procurement and make it easier to deploy troops across the EU. They do not even touch on questions of national defence spending, let alone on high politics and strategic culture, and leave out several glaring omissions – like nuclear deterrence.

There is good reason for these omissions. The EU is effectively built to make bargains possible and fruitful, and to avoid leadership at all costs. This has several advantages – notably, small Member States such as Malta or Cyprus get their voice amplified, avoiding a monopoly of the larger States. The reliance on institutional compromise is what makes grand bargains possible. This is a very effective scheme for overall European integration. However, it is a terribly unsuited one for military integration, which requires a chain of command, clear and fast decision-making, and centralised leadership. Nowhere is this truer than in the management of a country’s nuclear arsenal.

French President Macron was the first head of government to acknowledge the nuclear elephant in the room. He has recently made headlines with his call for a European debate on the French nuclear deterrent, but the precise intention behind his words remains unclear. It cannot be taken for granted that France will commit a national resource to wider Union defence with such high stakes, to the point of considering a nuclear threat to any EU Member State as a nuclear threat to France’s own soil. But what his words have done is to make clear beyond any possible equivocation that European institutions and governments must treat this as a very real, and very serious policy question. The departure of the UK, and the growing uncertainty surrounding NATO, present a twin problem: part of it is strategic, the other part political.

The Strategic Problem

The security situation in the West increasingly resembles the Cold War. This might come as a surprise to readers, who are used to a different narrative regarding foreign policy and military matters. With the Cold War over, it is true that the West in general and NATO, in particular, focused away from containing the dissolving Soviet Union, and toward military intervention all over the world. The last decade, however, has largely reverted the trend.

Russia is ahead of all of Europe in military capabilities. This might not be apparent from looking at government budgets and defence spending. Indeed, the Russian defence budget is low in absolute terms, although it’s a high share of the country’s GDP. Spending, however, does not linearly translate into capabilities. The high availability of raw materials, low salaries and procurement costs, along with other factors, make the Russian military comparatively cheap to run and build up.

All Russian armed forces are still beleaguered by a host of technical and organisational problems, and many of their flashy new pieces of equipment serve more for marketing purposes than for the actual battlefield. In capabilities, however, Russia is still ahead of continental Europe, at a time when European governments have been neglecting their own defence. This means the gap is widening. Crucially, Russia is able to conduct combined arms operations, something that can’t be said for any European military at the time of writing.

In response, Western countries are shifting focus once more, away from intervention and towards a more classical emphasis on territorial defence. This new situation means that everyone can re-evaluate their position, and the Trump administration has been doing just that. Further, the intensified rivalry between the USA and Britain on one hand, and the EU on the other, has weakened certainties that there would be a common nuclear deterrence. Transatlantic politics have shifted in a way that is pitting the United States and Great Britain against continental Europe on trade, finance, and the future of the liberal world order.

This poses a problem for Brussels. With wider alliances suddenly uncertain, all that remains is the French nuclear deterrent. This, alone, would be hard-pressed to cover the entirety of the European Union in the event of an attack. And the French willingness to risk nuclear devastation to defend another Member State cannot be taken for granted indefinitely.

At a time when Russia is ahead of the EU in terms of conventional military forces, a nuclear deterrent is an indispensable guarantee against the outbreak of war. We have taken this deterrent for granted over the past few decades – but now, we no longer can. Of course, nuclear proliferation by itself could greatly raise international tensions and would need very careful managing. But with the two Atlantic great powers drifting away from each other, we can no longer sweep the question under the rub: the EU needs a nuclear deterrent.

It is unthinkable for Europe alone to supplant NATO with domestic means. When it comes to nuclear deterrence, however, the technical capacity to handle nuclear weapons is already present in Europe. The technical aspect alone is not enough, though – there is also a political dimension to all this that cannot be ignored. Who would build, field, and maintain these nuclear weapons? Who would make the political commitment to territorial defence that makes a nuclear deterrent credible?

The Political Problem

The answer to these questions proves vexing. An EU nuclear arsenal would require an endowment of defence responsibilities upon the EU that is well beyond anything currently contemplated. It would also require a whole new framework to establish who has control over such weapons and through what procedures, and it would raise several questions about the status of this nuclear program under international law. So far, nuclear development has been exclusive to nation-States, and a supranational organisation acquiring one would certainly complicate the picture.

The other option, and on the surface of it a far more practical one, is to push at least one Member State to develop a nuclear arsenal, thus filling the void left behind by the United Kingdom. There are several historical precedents that might point to likely candidates. During the Cold War, multiple European countries ran, or considered running, semi-clandestine nuclear programs to acquire deterrence against a Soviet invasion.

Italy devoted simultaneous attention to its own indigenous nuclear program, as well as to the planned NATO multilateral development and deployment of nuclear weapons. Sweden’s own program was thinly disguised as research in civilian nuclear technology, and Germany also considered its own nuclear program but never officially pursued it. Eventually, the Non-Proliferation Treaty put an end to all these plans. Despite this, many European countries today remain part of NATO’s so-called nuclear sharing.

A single Member State acquiring nuclear deterrence certainly looks more practical, but this solution also has its own complications. Every EU Member State has acceded to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it is unclear how the subject could be broached internationally to negotiate an addition to the official list of nuclear States. Of course, the Israeli option of running a clandestine nuclear program that remains just short of completion while in peacetime is always available. However, while that simplifies the approach on the international arena, it doesn’t help with domestic politicking. Member States would be putting a lot of trust into this hypothetical new nuclear Member State, and the horse-trading required to gain sufficient goodwill all-round might be too much for any one government to stomach. Further, there is no clear appetite anywhere in Europe, when it comes to public opinion, for the acquisition of new nuclear weapons.

A third, much more moderate proposal would be to replicate NATO’s nuclear sharing agreement, but at an EU level. This is certainly reflected in Macron’s statements that French nuclear forces play a deterrent role in Europe, reinforce European security through their mere existence and, in this respect, have an authentically European dimension. Macron has also proposed a strategic dialogue, with interested European partners, on the role of French nuclear deterrence in our collective security.

It’s possible that Macron is linking the introduction of an EU nuclear sharing agreement to concessions in other policy areas. For example, such a sharing agreement would certainly remove some headaches from Germany, given the touchy subject – but would enable Macron to demand that Berlin give way on some economic proposals advanced by Paris. The timing of his statements – just as negotiations over the EU budget have ground to a halt – certainly seems to suggest such a possibility.

A nuclear sharing agreement would not put EU nuclear deterrence on an equal footing with Russia, but it would be better than nothing. That seems to be the name of the game when it comes to European integration these days.

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As usual, there is absolutely no reason to take the populist narrative of themselves at face value. Moreover, their attempt to present themselves as common sense parties for the common man are highly dishonest. Anti system parties are not new in the West, and while they can often implement “catch all” strategies, they are always traceable to the political spectrum if one looks closely enough.

Northern And Southern Populism?

Philip Manow, a German political scientist, has developed a theory about populism, dividing it into two distinct geographical expressions, one for Northern Europe and one for Southern Europe. The difference, according to him, is that Northern populism is a form of nationalism, whereas Southern populism is primarily an anti-globalisation movement. Examples cited range from Spain, in which the left wing of the political spectrum is in great health, to Greece with its governing “coalition of the radical left”. In countries like Germany, Sweden etc, the populist wave would instead be markedly against immigration.

This model has many flaws. Recent political developments in Spain have shown the emergence of a far right movement much in the nationalist style supposedly unique to Northern Europe. Italy bucks the trend, too, with far right party North League currently first in opinion polls with a huge lead. Moreover, northern populists themselves don’t pull punches in their critique of globalisation.

Even more importantly, Manow falls into the most common mistake of taking populists at face value. It’s true that there are many similarities between so-called populist platforms, not just in Europe, but in the West in general: opposition to political correctness, hostility to civil rights, economic nationalism, foreign policies based on antagonism rather than cooperation etc. These similarities, however, don’t point to a single populist political platform, not even one split along geographical lines: they are simply a rejection of liberalism and social democracy. There is no news in this, and one wonders why the phenomenon has baffled people so much, when there is no mystery at all. The far right and the far left have both rejected liberalism for as long as they have been around. Their critiques might at times overlap, but they did the same in the 1930s and the 1940s.

In fact, it’s precisely the rediscovery of these terms – far left and far right – that best explains the character of these populist parties, including both their similarities and their differences. Let’s look at a real world example in which both extremes played an influential role; the French presidential elections of 2017.

The Far Right And The Far Left In France’s Presidential Elections

Of the top four parties, two made the headlines for their radical and “populist” platforms. The first is the famous far right party led by Marine le Pen, back then still called Front National (literally national front). This party is not new – it was founded in 1972, and has been a regular fixture in elections since then. In the first round of the 2017 presidential elections, it gained 21,30% of the votes.

The party, which has recently been renamed Rassemblement National, has moved away from traditional French far right positions and embraced the growing internationalisation of far right ideologies. Earlier in 2019, it has also quietly dropped its demands to quit the European Union and the Euro. Nevertheless, the key tenets of its campaign remain: French nationalism, opposition to immigration and globalism, and virulent Euroscepticism.

The other populist party is the far left list represented by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and called La France Insoumise (literally the non-oppressed France). This party gained 19,58%, materially translating into some 600.000 fewer voters than the Front National. Both parties have been branded as “populist”. Both tried to appeal to rural and blue collar voters with a campaign run against the establishment, the European Union, transatlantic ties, and just about any spook imaginable. And yet, the parties remain distinct in identity, representing the far left and the far right in France.

La France Insoumise isn’t the communist party of France, nor is it an old name in French politics. It was founded on the 23rd April of 2017, from the fusion of the ‘Parti de Gauche’ (Party of the Left) and a coalition of parties called the ‘Front the Gauche’ (Left Front). They ran as one party for the 2017 presidential elections, running on an anti-capitalist and Eurosceptic agenda.

As is common in the West, the French Presidential elections were affected by high rates of abstention, coming at around 22,23% and 25,6% for the first respectively second turn.

If we count at the abstentionism, we obtain that 16,57% from a total population of nearly sixty-five million voted for Marine Le Pen in the first round. By the same calculation, La France Insoumise scored 15,23%. The two extreme parties, taken together, do so reach 31,80% of the total amount of eligible voters in the first round of the election. A third of the French population voted for either the far left or the far right. But is this section of the population truly homogenous?

The Old Divisions Haven’t Gone Away

Traditional parties are struggling everywhere in Europe, but in France, their decline has been ruinous. With the country’s high unemployment rate and social tensions, both traditional parties that have for so long defined French political history scored catastrophically low. The French ‘Parti Social’ (Social Party), which produced Macron’s predecessor as president, François Hollande, barely reached the 6% mark. Its decline was confirmed in the recent European elections. Their traditional adversary, Les Républicains (The Republicans) saved face with 20% of votes in 2017, although their downward spiral continued – they were overtaken by the Greens in the 2019 European elections, for a start.

However, just because the two traditional main parties are ailing, that doesn’t mean there is anything especially new on the table, much less something that deserves the brand-new name of populism. Far left and far right ideas have been part and parcel of French democracy for more than a century, and while there is some overlap in the voter segments targeted by Le Pen and Melenchon, there are also key distinctions. Let’s look at this demographic map of France.

Now, let’s compare it with a map of voting preferences at a regional and local level for the 2017 presidential elections. There is a clear overlap between economic difficulties and a preference for promises of deliverance over continuity with the past. That should not be surprising. What is more interesting, however, is that the Front National and La France Insoumise do not overlap geographically.

We can clearly see that the Front National got the most votes in the east and north of the country, areas that traditionally lived off heavy industry and mining. These areas have been negatively affected by de-industrialisation. Interestingly, however, voting support for La France Insoumise does not map on the same areas, collecting its support primarily in rural and agricultural areas to the south and west of France, as well as in a few arrondissements in Paris.

This data should caution us not to jump to conclusions. There is some truth in the notion that so-called populist parties run campaigns centered on anger, frustration, and rejection of the establishment. But that has been true of all anti-system parties and movements in the history of European democracy, and does not automatically signal the emergence of a coherent “populist” opposition to the elites. Not only do these parties have different identities and platforms, they also have distinct voting bases. The attempt at making these parties appear de-politicised and honest representatives of the common man are a communication ploy. Nor can the division in current politics today simply be described as one of globalists versus anti-globalists.

The social tensions and economic problems at the root of the changes in French politics need to be addressed. If Emmanuel Macron can’t, the likelihood that Le Pen will be asked to is high. Nevertheless, the divide between the right and left is not dead, not even on the extremes: it remains alive, both in ideology and in geographical and demographic distribution. These parties have a common enemy – liberal democracy – but not a common agenda. It’s time to drop the confusing moniker of “populism” and return to the names that successfully described radicals for a long time: far left and far right extremists.

Guest article by Felix Wagner. This content does not necessarily reflect the official opinion of My Country? Europe. Responsibility for the information and views expressed therein lies entirely with the author.

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Another by-product of the cultural and linguistic ties between the home countries and the former colonies is the creation of new international organisations. These tipically favour international cooperation and friendship between countries that share a common language.

Alongside the Portuguese CPLP, one of the largest among such interngovernmental organisations is the International Organisation of the Francophonie. It accounts over 54 full members, 7 associate members and 27 observers. It was founded in 1970, mainly by the will of African leaders, with the name Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation. Since then, the Organisation of the Francophonie has evolved in an articulated organisation comprising different political instances, relying on five operating agencies.

The French language and the world: colonial past, culture and business

France created a huge colonial empire during the 19^th century, after losing its American and Indian territories following the Seven Years War of 1756-1763 against England. That new empire occupied a large portion of Africa, especially Western and Northern Africa, Madagascar, the so-called French Indochina, and other small possessions, mainly archipelagos in the Pacific and the Caribbean (some of which still are part of France), alongside with the only South American territory, Cayenne.

Being France one of the most powerful countries in the world and controlling such an amount of territories throughout three continents and Europe, it was inevitable that its language would have become one of the most important and wide-spoken.

Still, the influence of French literature and arts clearly set a more peaceful way for French to spread. It was widely spoken as a second language and even though the role of France became somewhat less relevant than it were before after World War I and II, French maintained its status as an international language. We can still see some of that influence today, for example in the fact that it’s the only official language of the United Nations Secretariat alongside English.

After the decolonization process ended, French became an official language in most of the newborn countries or kept an unofficial role as a second or business language. Also the former Belgian possessions of nowadays D.R. of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi recognize French as an official language, being Belgium a largely French speaking country.

As of today, French is an official language in 29 countries, nearly 300 million people are capable of expressing themselves in French, and 90 million of these are native speakers. In Europe, over 24 million people are able to speak French in Italy, Germany and the UK alone. One sure thing is that most of those 300 million people live in Africa and the demographic growth of sub-Saharan countries, which means that these numbers will grow fast. In entertaining economic, cultural and political relations with those countries, non-French speaking people could find it useful to learn it.

The International Organisation of the Francophonie

The two main missions of the Organisation of the Francophonie are to promote French as an international language in a time when English seems more dominant and to protect linguistic and cultural diversity. To a lesser extent, it also supports scholarships and higher education, cooperation for sustainable development, and the promotion of peace, democracy and human rights.

The decision-making body of the Francophonie is the Summit – a meeting of heads of French-speaking states and governments, which is convened every two years. This is the core instrument for the implementation of the Organisation’s goals and to discuss topical issues relevant to the French language. There are other four important bodies in the Organisation: an Executive Secretariat, a Ministerial Conference, a Permanent Council, and a Parliamentary Assembly.

There are also five agencies which exist to carry on the Organisation’s missions: the University Agency of the Francophonie (AUF), the Senghor University of Alexandria, the TV5Monde television network, the International Association of French-speaking Mayors (AIMF), and an Assembly gathering the French-speaking civil servants of International Organisations (AFFOI).

Defending French and promoting linguistic diversity: a difficult balance

The general secretary of the Organisation of the Francophonie, Louise Mushiwikabo, said on the 20^th of March that she won’t wage “war against other languages”. Such a statement, although quite magniloquent in words, is really important in its meaning. When it comes to linguistic conservation, the risk of taking a dive in the deep dark waters of nationalism is quite high. It’s quite meaningful that the extreme exaltation of national features is named after a French word: chauvinisme.

France has long suffered rivalry with England, and consequently with the English language but the talk about French grandeur is sometimes too influenced by prejudices. After all, the same problems that France has to deal with its own past and the fall of its colonial empire are the same of the UK. Both France and the UK justified colonization as an higher mission to civilize barbarous people, although their respective ideologies differed a lot as well as their outcomes.

It’s still debated to what extent a supposed post-empire syndrome could affect a country, but as of today it seems that globalization is the driving force of reflection on culture, as well as on the meaning of culture as well. The fear for the loss of “culture” is widely spread and we are now witnessing the rise of new and potentially dangerous nationalist parties and politicians across Europe and the so-called Western countries. This new wave of nationalism is trying to embroil language as a mean of exclusion.

In promoting linguistic diversity, the Organisation of the Francophonie seems to be dedicated not to exclusion, but inclusion. However, being it an intergovernmental organisation the risk for nationalistic politicians to interfere with its functioning is high. Also, the perception of organisations such as the OIF as a simple economic tool brings discredit upon them.

Still, to know more than a language is the best way we have to know other people and their culture. Although good feelings alone can nothing, they certainly help, so maybe it’s best to wish luck to organisations promoting ways of reciprocal understanding.

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In 2012, through these words, the Nobel Committee awarded the European Union with its prestigious Peace Prize (The Nobel Foundation, 2012). The initial steps of European integration are generally regarded as major catalysts for change that helped transform a war-torn continent into a “security community”, as Karl Deutsch put it (Deutsch 1957; Nathan 2010, 6). Europe’s political fabric was stripped away of nationalist sentiments and unilateralism in favour of cooperation mechanisms and multilateralism.

To this day, EU citizens enjoy an unprecedented degree of freedom and prosperity guaranteed by a long-lasting period of peace – around 70 years – in which the spectre of war survives in the minds of a few elderly citizens but is understandably ignored by younger generations. Indeed, a war between current member states is deemed “not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible” (Robert Schuman, 1950).

The EU and Power Politics

These premises certainly confirm that EU member states have renounced the use of military force to solve intra-European disputes, successfully scaling back the role of power politics in conflict resolution. By partially transferring their sovereignty to newly formed institutions, the founding countries created a supranational system that favours diplomacy and dialogue over hard power. Before digging into the analysis of the research question, it is essential to give a precise definition of power politics.

While some sources stress the preeminence of military assets, others include economic might in the set of instruments that a given country has at its disposal to exert influence over rival entities. Therefore, power politics can be defined as a way for states to conduct international relations where military, as well as economic tools, serve the purpose of advancing self-interest at the expenses of other actors (Merriam-Webster, 2018). This concept is central to the realist theory, which conceives international relations as a continuous struggle between states to satisfy their need of security and promote their interests in order to survive in the anarchic international system (Wohlforth 2008, 133).

Rebuilding Europe After WWII

The new European order emerged from the ashes of World War II. The consequent peace experienced over the following decades do not necessarily entail the definitive demise of power politics. Throughout the last century, some major member states have continued to use military projection and their international stature to strengthen their position both over fellow members and not. Moreover, the European Union has seen multiple conflicts rage not far from its Eastern borders. Some of these persist today in the form of frozen conflicts in which the bloc is more or less involved, although not militarily.

Greater economic interdependence and supranational law might have drastically changed the way European states interact, but the topic needs to be further explored from a historical perspective. It must be stressed that, as European integration has come to embrace the political realm as well, the role of power politics deserves a thorough analysis that also includes the study of EU foreign policy, and thus the external dimension.

The term “peace” needs to be carefully defined as well. By accepting a “minimalistic interpretation” (Pasture 2014, 8) we can easily argue that most of Europe has evolved from being a ravaged battlefield to a haven of democracy and justice, offering an excellent real-world example to democratic peace theorists. Peace, therefore, might simply result from the absence of war and violence. However, confrontations can take place without firing a single shot and by recurring to other less destructive means (nuclear deterrence, cyber-attacks, military exercises, missile defence systems setups etc.). By taking into account this dimension of power politics, for instance, the period encompassing the Cold War can hardly be considered peaceful; the weapons were cold, yet the tempers were not.

The rationale for peace-building

While it is widely accepted that European integration contributed to peace-building, academics have long argued on the rationales behind it using different theoretical frameworks, consequently reaching different conclusions. It is my opinion that a comprehensive understanding can only be achieved by considering the multiple perspectives available in the literature. Most importantly, the importance of a thematic and staged approach must be acknowledged.

The approach must be thematic because some policies, events and breakthroughs might be better explained by one theory rather than another. For instance, Haas’ theory of neo-functionalism confers special importance to supranational institutions and spillover effects. Meanwhile theorists of intergovernmentalism argue that national governments held the lead in order to advance their interests inside the European Community.

Some policies, like the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), relied on strong intergovernmental negotiations. Meanwhile, the setting up of the Monetary Union can be explained as a direct consequence of previous results in integration (spillover effect).

The staged process helps identify the best theory – or combination of theories – to read certain events in a delimited period of time. The early years of the European Community were of course characterized by the protagonism of national governments, which led to the setting up of supranational institutions in the first place. However, the period that saw the much-praised Jacques Delors guide the European Commission might best be unfolded by the institutionalist perspective and its underscoring of activism in supranational institutions.

The early stages of European integration can give us a glimpse of how power politics were still prominent at the time. France, Germany, Italy and the other member states were not fighting on battlefields any more. However, each state, whenever the occasion made it possible, tried to get the most benefits from the process.

Academics’ Approaches

Some intergovernmentalist scholars explain European integration as a way for states to rescue themselves (Milward 1992, 7). Although, this must not overshadow the importance of Monnet’s pragmatic idealism (Van Meurs et al. 2018, 63) and the founding fathers’ personal characters, distinguished by the shared universalist views and Christian values they relied upon. This is best exemplified by Schuman, De Gasperi and Adenauer’s leading roles in their respective Christian-Democratic parties (Verovšek 2017, 529).

Because of their nature as major powers, it was mostly France and – after its accession – Great Britain that continued to use power politics as a way to conduct their foreign policies (Van Meurs et al. 2018, 230). Taking into account examples from the 20^th  as well as the 21^st century such as the Pleven Plan (1950) and the intervention in Libya (2011), we can argue that power politics did not disappear from the European scene. Indeed, it became subtler and less dependent on material and military assets. States used the new supranational platform to advance national interests and steer negotiations and new policies in a way that would favour them over other members.

The intergovernmentalist approach that featured the early integration process can be intended as a way for states to use power politics in a new ratio that would suit the new friendlier context. France, especially, used its weight, diplomatic power and reputation to oppose any initiative that would reduce significantly its sovereignty and would put into question its supremacy in continental Europe.

The Pleven Plan

Pressures from the United States aimed at convincing France about the importance of rehabilitating Western Germany’s military capacities and embedding them into a supranational defence platform showed to be insufficient to assuage the French political establishment, which still feared a resurgence of German expansionism.

The European Defence Community (EDC), a plan proposed precisely for this aim by the then Prime Minister René Pleven, entailed some form of political union that most of the French military deemed unnecessary and dangerous, as it undermined the possibility for France to freely project its military power (Gavin 2009, 80).

General Ely was one of the few prominent figures from the army to support the plan, though only from a political perspective, as France had heavily invested in it. General Juin fiercely opposed the plan, as it would have stripped the nation of its authority to confer it to a supranational institution (ibid.).

The French officials who supported the plan were not blindly underestimating the German question; the diplomat Helvé Alphand conceived the EDC as a way for France to keep a stricter control over Germany. France, after all, could count on a larger army, and could appoint its officials in key positions (ibid.) to not let others assume a leading role. In the end, both the factions were opposing or arguing in favour of the EDC because, in their opinion, the position of France would be strengthened. Any higher ideal of European unity was not the determining factor of the sides taken; the distribution of power could not be changed or reduced to the detriment of France.

These opposing views pushed the newly appointed Prime Minister Pierre Mendès in 1954 to rethink the plan and modify some of its core provisions, devoiding it of any supranational footprint. Any reference to a federal or confederal system was eliminated, while Germany would have been the only member state to integrate its army. By losing its meaning, the plan was never adopted despite the ratification by the other national parliaments. Power politics had come to shape post-world war Europe as well.

The Fouchet Plan

Other shows of force in the European arena concerned the Fouchet Plan and the negotiations over the CAP in the sixties, a source of grim debates among member states since its inception. The French President General de Gaulle played an important role in both events. When he came to power, it was immediately clear that he would try to assert French supremacy on the continent.“Europe”, he said, “is the means for France to recover what it ceased to be after Waterloo: first in the world” (Vanke 2001, 96).

De Gaulle’s objective was to drive Europe away from the influence of the USA and the Soviet Union and create the sufficient premises for France to lead European integration under its conditions and leadership (ibid.). Supranational institutions like the Commission and the European Parliament, designed by his predecessors, were seen as obstacles to overcome in order to reach the goal. The plan, named after the French ambassador Christian Fouchet, conceived a loose “political union of states” grounded on a solid intergovernmental structure that would include a security dimension as well.

The French proposal ultimately failed due to strong opposition from the Netherlands and Belgium, who favoured an Atlanticist approach and feared French supremacy (Dinan 2014, 101). The Dutch opposition strategy, led by the foreign minister Joseph Luns, consisted of linking the accession of the United Kingdom (the so called prealable englias/English prerequisite) to the new political union.

Indeed, conflicting views revolved around Britain. The French opposed British membership over concerns of excessive influence from NATO, de facto controlled by the US, on European affairs. Meanwhile, the Dutch had hoped since the signing of the Treaty of Rome that the UK would become a member to counter the early Franco-German axis. Nonetheless, Dutch opposition was so firm that the Netherlands would have even accepted the setting-up of the political union provided that they would not become part of it (Vanke 2001, 108).

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

Like the Fouchet Plan, some academics go as far as to say that the confrontation over the CAP in 1965 was deliberately pushed forward by the French, especially from the Gaullist faction, to shape the European Economic Community (EEC) in a way that would suit more their interests (Newhouse 1967, 21). However, according to the international historian N. Piers Ludlow, the conflict was primarily spurred by Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to jointly challenge the supremacy that France had assumed in the first decade of European integration (Ludlow 1999, 233).

It can be argued that the European Community was first and foremost a French project that would have never been realized if the French had not taken the initiative (ibid.). All the six founders undoubtedly gained advantages from the making of the customs union and were well aware that no further progress in integration would have taken place without France leading the operation. This acknowledgement reduced their negotiating power (ibid. 236). The Germans especially wanted to avoid the dissolution of the Community at all costs, as it served as a major tool to regain legitimacy on the international scene.

The possibility of such dissolution emerged in 1965 when the six failed to agree on details concerning the CAP. de Gaulle encountered strong resistance over the policy, which was clearly favouring the French agricultural industry at the expense of the other states’ finances. The three “rebels” felt they had given enough concessions to satisfy French demands. Italy, for instance, was the biggest net contributor to the common budget despite being the poorest of the six (ibid. 237).

Confident of its position, General de Gaulle withdrew the French permanent representative at the EEC from its post in Brussels and decided that no French delegation would be sent to the next Council and COREPER meetings. The crisis ultimately led to the so-called Luxembourg Compromise. It inflicted a fatal blow to the supranational character of the community as member states acquired veto power over matters considered too important for national interests, heavily reducing the importance of Qualified Majority Vote (QMV) in the decision-making process. According to the French politician and economist Robert Marjolin, the compromise “consecrated the victory of the Gaullist conceptions in the matter of European institutions” (Marjolin 1989, 347).

De Gaulle and the French Withdrawal from NATO

de Gaulle’s attempts to restore France’s grandeur also concerned the broader transatlantic relations. In 1966, in a move that shocked his allies, the general announced France’s withdrawal from the military command of NATO. The decision perfectly suited de Gaulle’s conception of international relations, a strongly realist one, that marginalized the role of ideology and focused entirely on the balance of power (Martin 2011, 233).

He had credibly declared himself anti-Communist before, but as his scepticism over US presence on the continent became more marked, he sought a softer relationship with the Soviet Union that would make space for a strategy of détente as opposed to US containment.

De Gaulle conceived the transatlantic alliance in a different way compared to his European partners, less reluctant to rely on the American leadership to counterbalance Soviet influence. Before leaving NATO, France had already halted its participation to common military activities, creating the premises for the treaty to be considered a “14 + 1” alliance more than a compact bloc (ibid. 235).

French national sovereignty was paramount, and any move towards transatlantic integration of military capabilities had to be rejected. This is the reason behind France’s refusal to take part in the Multilateral Force project (MLF), aimed at integrating the nuclear capabilities of all three major NATO powers. Nuclear independence became a primary objective as de Gaulle would not accept the Anglo-Saxon supremacy and prerogative on this matter. Furthermore, he went as far as to side with the Soviet Union to oppose German membership in the MLF project (ibid.).

The Élysée Treaty between Germany and France signed in 1963 corroborated the Franco-German axis but ran parallel with the two countries’ opposing views on transatlantic relations; despite Adenauer’s warm welcoming of such treaty, he also interpreted it as a way for de Gaulle to further distance France from NATO and embed a new security system in the axis. When the next year de Gaulle persisted with his stance by offering the new German president Ludwig Erhard a “veiled ultimatum” on what side to pick, Adenauer’s fears were confirmed (ibid. 237). However, Germany would eventually choose to affirm its loyalty to Washington.

De Gaulle’s ultimate goal was to free the European continent, stretching “from the Atlantic to the Urals” (ibid.234), of the tension stemming from the Cold War. To him, the United States was responsible for feeding the flames of the conflict and only a European security system under French leadership and supervision would be able to restore some balance. History, though, would betray him.

France in the Cold War

Throughout the following 30 years of Cold War, France would uphold its distinct position and try to emerge as the third alternative to the bipolarity imprinted on the world stage by the two warring superpowers. Despite de Gaulle’s positioning on the right of the political spectrum, it would be the socialist President François Mitterrand more than anyone to keep afloat the General’s tenets of national independence and scepticism over the transatlantic alliance. France witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the End of the Cold War under his presidency, in the eighties and early nineties, when NATO’s purpose was put into question and a reform of Europe’s defence structure seemed necessary (Menon 1995, 22).

After de Gaulle’s departure, the semi-presidential system which characterized the Fifth Republic laid the ground for institutional conflicts between the President and the Prime Minister over who had to be in control of foreign policy. Mitterrand feared that NATO would further push for an integrationist policy, eventually including the political dimension. The prime minister Édouard Balladur instead, represented the Atlanticist faction in the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), which envisioned a rapprochement with the alliance. Yet, France’s official position continued to come out as ambiguous and distrust mounted from both sides.

An official from the US declared that if “it wasn’t for the French, we might be able to accept the assurances that a new European security entity would be part of a trans-Atlantic partnership, but on this issue, we don’t trust the French” (ibid. 24). Indeed, France urged the other European allies to come together and embrace a common defence structure; nevertheless, her actions didn’t go much further than creating a Franco-German brigade in agreement with Chancellor Helmut Kohl (Brown 2013, 291).

With all the major member states enclosed in the Atlantic framework, France was the only country ardently pushing for a European security arm that could challenge NATO leadership. Paradoxically, perhaps out of awareness that nothing would be accomplished at the European level, France also recognized the importance of the alliance and supported several US-led initiatives (Menon 1995, 27).

France’s Re-entry into NATO and Libyan Intervention

It was only in 2009 that, under the presidency of Nicolas Sarcozy, France re-joined NATO. This move followed years in which France’s attempts to shape an independent European security policy had slowed down.

Some success had been achieved in 1993 with the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, which institutionalized the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) as the second of the three pillars forming the new European Union; however, the Petersberg Declaration issued the previous year had made clear that EU’s foreign policy activities would have only included crisis management, leaving the actual military tasks to NATO (Van Meurs et al. 2018, 231).

By joining the Alliance, Sarcozy recognized that France’s interests would thenceforth be better pursued within the transatlantic framework. In 2012 a report by the once strongly anti-NATO French politician Hubert Védrine stated that indeed France could not count on a European security apparatus and would be worse off out of NATO (ibid. 292). The country’s role in the transatlantic alliance was first tested during the 2011 military intervention in Libya. The operation exemplified the persistence of power politics in the European landscape and, most likely, of de Gaulle’s ghost in French foreign policy (Brown 2013, 296).

Approved by the UN Security Council, the military intervention was primarily led by France and Great Britain to stop general Gaddafi from committing violence against his people. In 2010 pacific protests had erupted throughout the Arab world, especially by the hand of young citizens, and the strongmen in power did not restrain from using violence. However, other reasons might have led France to intervene.

Intervention in Libya and the Impact on European Relations

As outlined by the intelligence platform Stratfor, the event translated into an indirect and silent confrontation between Italy and France. Since the establishment of its old colony, Italy has always considered Libya to be extremely important for its national interests, with regular energy supply and stability as primary objectives.

France’s assertiveness during the crisis ended up convincing the Italians that its role risked being stripped away by its transalpine allies, especially through new potential energy contracts signed by the French company Total at the detriment of the Italian ENI. In fact, responding to clarifications over the future of the Italian business in Libya, the Deputy Chairman of the Libyan National Transition Council Hafiz al Ghogha said that this would depend on “the support that the various European countries have offered the grassroots uprising” (Stratfor 2011, 11).

Before the conflict started, France was also the most important European arms supplier for Tripoli, but its role was being challenged by Rome with deals worth more than one billion dollars in 2010 (ibid. 8). Today, eight years after the military intervention, the confrontation is still ongoing:  President Emmanuel Macron is tacitly backing General Khalifa Haftar, which controls the eastern region of Cyrenaica, while Italy supports the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli.

France’s renewed activism over the last years, in Lybia as well as in Mali, can be read, from a broader perspective, as a way to reassert its role as major European military power in contrast with German supremacy over the economic sphere (ibid. 7). Eventually, the crisis proved the complete disunity of EU’s member states in the field of foreign policy.

Conclusion

With the exception of the Algerian War of Independence, legally speaking an intra-European civil war (Pasture 2015, 2; Hansen & Jonsson 2014), the process of European integration has brought long-lasting peace over most of the continent’s territory. The Franco-German robust friendship represents the most successful achievement of the process. However, we must avoid resorting to teleological explanations. While historical thinking might lead us to conceive a linear progression of history pointing to a predetermined end, we cannot exclude the repetition of events, or the occurrence of new ones, possibly caused by multiple contingent factors (ibid. 8).

The EU immediate neighbouring regions host a few ongoing conflicts (Nagorno-Karabakh, Eastern Ukraine, Libya) which threaten the geopolitical stability of the continent and affect intra-European dynamics. As shifts in the transatlantic relationships became clear after Trump’s trade tariffs against the bloc, the EU finds itself at a crossroads between departing from its status of “economic giant, political dwarf and military worm,” as in the words of former Belgian foreign minister Mark Eyskens and remaining anchored to a stagnating context fuelled by its leaders’ empty declarations. Yet, as demonstrated previously by exploring France’s historical behaviour, power politics have triggered and found a way into European integration since its inception, with countries today still reluctant to give up more sovereignty.

Supranational institutions have acquired a life of their own, but intergovernmentalism still persists consistently. President Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel have recently restated the question of a European army, but chances are that nothing tangible will come out of it, at least in the short and medium terms. Nonetheless, this proves once again that the military dimension is still central to the biggest economic bloc risen out of the ashes of war; further shifts in the international order could challenge the current dynamics and systems of alliances, leading the EU to assume a more proactive role in the new multipolar world, perhaps by overtaking NATO’s task, as hoped by France, or acting as a complement to it, as favoured by Germany.

Bibliography

An earlier version of this article was originally written for the University of Leiden. 

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The Road To War

The Thirty Years’ War began when three representatives of the Holy Roman Empire were thrown out the window of the royal castle in Prague in 1618, sparking a continent-wide religious conflict. The following thirty years tore the heart out of Europe, killing nearly a quarter of the entire German population and devastating Central Europe to such an extent that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the battles rapidly spiralled out of control, with armies giving way to marauding bands of starving soldiers, spreading plague and murder.

The Thirty Years’ War can be roughly divided into four parts: the outbreak of hostilities with the Bohemian War, the Danish intervention, the Swedish intervention, and the French intervention. To begin, some of the issues that lay behind it must first be understood. The road to war began with a local conflict, internal to the Holy Roman Empire, which then exploded into a massive war that would lead to millions of deaths and the destruction of hundreds of villages and cities. By the war’s end, mostly Swedish and French forces could move around the Germanies almost at will, taking and burning what they wanted. The tides of war led to the quick decentralization of the Holy Roman Empire, and to a peace of great historical significance.

Christianity Divided

The roots of the war are grounded in the Peace of Augsburg, established in 1555. Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor/Charles I of Spain) made abortive efforts during 1540-1541 to enforce a compromise agreement between the Protestants and the Catholics within the Holy Roman Empire, which threatened to tear the realm apart. When these and other conciliar efforts failed, he turned to military solutions. In 1547, imperial armies crushed the Protestant Schmalkaldic League. The emperor established puppet rulers in Saxony and Hesse and issued an imperial law, the Augsburg Interim, which commanded Protestants everywhere to readopt Catholic beliefs and practices. The effort came to naught: the Reformation was too entrenched by 1547 to be ended even by brute force. Charles, already weary from three decades of war, relented when he was confronted by fierce Protestant resistance.

In September 1555, the treaty made the division of Christendom permanent. This agreement recognised in law what had already been established in practice: “cuius regio, eius religio,” meaning that the ruler of a land would determine the religion of the land. Lutherans were permitted to retain all church lands that had been forcibly seized before 1552. Those who were discontented with the religion of their region were permitted to migrate to another.

It is worth noting that Calvinism was not recognised as a legal form of Christian belief and practice by the Peace of Augsburg. However, Calvinists remained determined not only to secure their right to worship publicly as they pleased but also to shape society according to their own religious convictions. They reacted by orchestrating national revolutions throughout northern Europe.

In 1609, Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria (1573-1651), organised a Catholic League to counter a new Protestant alliance that had been formed by the Calvinist Elector Palatine, Frederick IV (r. 1583-1610). When the League fielded a great army under the command of Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (1559-1651), the stage was set, internally and internationally, for the Thirty Years’ War, the worst European catastrophe since the Black Death.

Protestants Take Up Arms Against The Empire

The defenestration of Prague became the signal for a general rebellion in predominantly Protestant Bohemia. It started in Prague but soon spread to the other territories encompassing the Crown of Bohemia, stretching into Austrian territory. In the summer of 1618, the revolt had already gained footholds in Silesia, Lusatia and Upper Austria. The first actual battles in the Thirty Years’ War took place near the city of Pilsen (modern Plzeň, Czechia) where many Catholics had taken refuge. To stop the Catholics from receiving reinforcements, the Bohemian rebels under Ernst von Mansfeld marched towards Pilsen, and the siege thus began in September. Like the first battle, the first siege also ended with an overwhelming victory for the Protestants.

The Winter King on the Retreat

The victory gave the Bohemians an upper hand, but they had to strike while the iron was hot. To do this, they had to gather as many allies as possible and strike into the heartland of the Habsburgs in Austria. However, few neighbours were willing to risk a European war to aid the Bohemians. Only one Western European State, little Savoy, supplied the Bohemians with economic assistance – but it was not enough. After constant fighting that stretched for years, the Bohemians were eventually handed a crushing defeat at the Battle of White Mountain.

For the Bohemians, this battle was a disaster. Their lands were returned to the Catholics, and the Jesuits took control of the University of Prague. Countless people were executed as traitors and rebels, hundreds of thousands of people fled. Bohemia would then remain a stable part of the Habsburg Empire for three centuries.

While the Habsburgs were under assault from several directions, the Transylvanians under Gábor Bethlen took the opportunity to invade Hungary from the East. The crisis continued to escalate: the Swiss lent aid to rebels in Northern Italy, and the Palatine and the Bohemians also pushed hard from several directions.
By 1621, however, the Habsburgs were victorious everywhere. Order had been restored in Bohemia, Hungary, and Valtellina in Italy. In the Palatine, Frederick V (dubbed the “Winter King”) lost fortification after fortification. To outside eyes, the conflict looked all but over. But nothing could be further from the truth.

A General European War: Danish Intervention

Emperor Ferdinand II and his advisors bear the brunt of responsibility for the continuation of the war. A compromise could have been reached if they had  been satisfied with depriving Frederick V of the Bohemian Crown, but seeing the prospect of a complete and total victory, the Habsburgs fought on, persuading Frederick V to carry on.

Meanwhile, seeing the triumphs of the Catholics, Spain saw an opportunity to settle its score with the Dutch. With Northern Italy and the Palatine firmly under Catholic Habsburg control, the road to the Netherlands lay open. The instigators of this war were the Count-Duke of Olivares, Ferdinand II; Cardinal Richelieu of France, and Gustav II Adolf of Sweden. They were responsible for prolonging the conflict.

When Christian IV of Denmark intervened in the Thirty Years’ War, he was at the peak of his power. Income from the ransom of Älvsborgs Castle and the Sound Dues made it easy for him to cough up money for military expeditions. He also had personal reasons for intervening. He had hoped that a quick and decisive strike into Germany would land him the territories of Bremen, Verden, and Schwerin for his two sons.

Emperor Ferdinand II secured the assistance of Albrecht von Wallenstein (1583-1634), who raised an independent army of 50,000. The combined forces of Wallenstein and Tilly defeated Christian IV in 1626, and then proceeded to occupy the duchy of Holstein. The Treaty of Lubeck, signed in 1629, restored Holstein to Denmark, but the Danish king pledged not to intervene further in German affairs. The Danish period of the war, like the Bohemian period, thus ended with a Habsburg and Catholic victory. Protestants everywhere were alarmed by the Catholic victories. The Emperor’s triumphs endangered the independence of the German princes, while the French Bourbons were concerned about the growth of Habsburg power.

Turning Point: Swedish Intervention

King Gustav II Adolf (r. 1611 – 1632) of Sweden became the new leader of the Protestant cause. In the summer of 1630, the Swedes made landfall in Germany. This marked one of the turning points of the Thirty Years’ War, but it must be emphasized that Swedish intervention was not a foregone conclusion. By 1630, the war had raged for twelve years. Denmark had been swiftly defeated upon intervening.
It would have been easy for Gustav II Adolf and his Lord High Chancellor, Axel Oxenstierna, to stay neutral and focus on the campaign they really burned for: fighting against Sigismund III Wasa of Poland.

As the name implies, Sigismund was of Swedish origin. He was the son of the Swedish king Johan III, and of the Polish princess Catherine Jagiellon, but he lost the crown. However, he still planned to reclaim Sweden. Gustav II Adolf could have focused on ending this threat, but chose instead to steer Sweden towards the Protestant cause, and against Germany.

Sweden’s intervention also presented a useful convergence of interests with France, which remained embroiled in its own goal of limiting Habsburg power and agreed to provide Gustav II Adolf with an annual subsidy of 400,000 talers to maintain an army in the conflict. After consolidating his position across the Baltic, the Swedish king led a stunningly successful campaign, culminating in the battle at Breitenfeld in 1631. This battle destroyed an Imperial army under the command of General Tilly and gave Gustav II Adolf a dominant position in northern Germany, inflicting the first massive defeat to the Imperial forces. He then consolidated his position and conducted a lightning campaign to wrest much of present-day Germany from Imperial control. His success, however, met an abrupt end with his death at Lützen in 1632, having fought Wallenstein’s army to a draw in the process.

Thirty Years And No Sign of Peace

Three years later, in 1635, the Thirty Years’ War could well have ended, thanks to the Peace of Prague. This treaty was signed by Ferdinand II and the Elector of Saxony, Johann Georg I. The Peace was important because Saxony was one of the largest and most powerful of the German Protestant states, and their support for Sweden had been instrumental in the efforts of the Swedish to build a network of alliances across Germany.

In 1631 and 1632, Sweden saw great victories and gains, and to a degree this continued in 1633 and 1634 even after the Battle of Lützen. All of this was swept away inthe Battle of Nördlingen, a true disaster for Swedish forces. Without active support from Richelieu, king Louis XIII’s chief minister, the Swedish could have been smacked back across the Baltic Sea, and the officials of the Holy Roman Empire hoped that 1635 would be the year that resulted in peace and German unity. Instead, the exact opposite happened: 1635 became the watershed that expanded the Thirty Years’ War to its final phase, when France actively got involved in the fighting.

The many theaters of the Thirty Years’ War – the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany – were intertwined, causing the war to spread with no peace in sight. Ferdinand II had viewed the Peace of Prague as a compromise: the fortunes of war could change rapidly as evident from the Battle of Breitingen and then from the Battle of Nördlingen. However, Ferdinand II now had an excellent opportunity to restore much of the positions lost to Gustav II Adolf of Sweden. This required the sacrifice of certain principles – the alternative was to go through a new round of war against all the Protestant states and Sweden, after all. Thus, Ferdinand abandoned many of the religious edicts that had propelled German anger into a full-blown conflict. He reinstated “cuius regio, eius religio,” paving the way for Protestant rulers to practice their faith in the open. This in turn meant that in 1635, the Thirty Years’ War lost the final claim it had to being a war of religion.

Spiralling Out of Control: French Intervention

France’s official entry in the war followed a long history of rivalry against the Habsburgs. Richelieu and Louis XIII had chosen a side long before 1635, in line with the traditional anti-Habsburg politics of France. They had supported the Netherlands and Sweden financially, and they had intervened against the Habsburgs directly on several occasions as evident from the Mantuan Succession War. Furthermore, Richelieu had strengthened France’s political situation by creating allied buffer States; the most obvious example was the Duchy of Savoy. The Savoyan rulers, however, had continually shown that they would rather make deals with the Habsburgs than bow down to Paris. By the mid-1630’s, though, the Duchy of Savoy was essentially a French satellite State whose interests aligned with Richelieu’s.

Another example is the German Archbishopric of Trier which accepted protection from France, granting Paris access to three strategically important fortresses– Koblenz, Ehrenbreitstein, and Phillipsburg.  A final example is Lothringen (modern-day Lorraine), then part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Duke of Lothringen, Charles IV, had a habit of cutting deals with the Habsburgs and broke promises made to France; thus allowing the Habsburgs to occupy strategic sites along the border to France. Finally, in 1633, this caused the French to invade the duchy and occupy it. By achieving all of this pre-1635, Richelieu had prepared for the French intervention, which aimed to break the Habsburg encirclement of France.

Despite many failures and disappointments during the first few years, especially when Spanish and Austrian troops came dangerously close to Paris after beating back the French in the Netherlands and from the Rhine, French intervention kept the war going. However, neither the Habsburgs nor the French alliance were able to strike a decisive blow until 1640, where the situation favoured the Swedish, the French, and their allies. While they were still unable defeat the Habsburgs, they kept up the advantage until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

The New Power Balance

The treaties that comprised the Peace of Westphalia had important ramifications for Europe. The end of the war cemented France as the premier land power on the continent, a position it would keep until the defeat in the Napoleonic wars; and it consecrated Sweden as a European Great Power, a status that Stockholm would keep until the end of the Great Northern War.

For Austria, two important things came from the Peace of Westphalia. Firstly, Cardinal Jules Mazarin (Chief Minister of the French King) was adamant in his demands that the Habsburgs of Austria be forced to cut ties with the Spanish Habsburgs, leaving Spain out of the peace treaty. France wanted Philip IV of Spain to lose all Austrian support. Ferdinand III of Austria was therefore forced to solemnly swear to withhold any and all aid to his Pyrenean relatives.

The Austrian ruler was reluctant, and for good reason. The alliance between Madrid and Vienna was old and connected the Habsburg house. However, during the Autumn of 1648, Ferdinand was forced to agree to the terms. The Spanish defeat at the Battle of Lens, and the Swedish conquest of half of Prague made continued warfare look extremely grim for Austria.  Another year of war could lead to even greater demands from the Swedish-French alliance, and so, Ferdinand grudgingly accepted.

Secondly, the peace established that the German rulers of the various duchies, kingdoms, counties, and cities throughout Germany were given a large degree of autonomy from the Holy Roman Emperor. However, no longer anchored to the warlike preferences of the Spaniards, and with fewer means to directly interfere in German politics, Austria was now able to pursue her true destiny: the East, where the dangerous behemoth known as the Ottoman Empire stood not far away from Vienna itself. In this way, Westphalia turned out to be a surprising blessing in disguise for Austria, allowing the Empire to increase its territory and consolidate its status as a Great Power over the next two centuries.

The Treaties that Changed the World

The legacy of Westphalia, however, goes well beyond the peace itself and the new order it brought to Europe. The Treaties established new legal principles that had major ramifications for the international order. The key novelty is the rejection of the universalistic ideas of the Middle Ages: the Church and the Empire, and their respective claims to ecumenism.

By effectively outlawing crusades between European nations, and establishing each country’s right to pick a religion without outside interference, Westphalia defined sovereignty and put the nation-State at the center of the political system for the very first time. In the post-Westphalian world, there is no authority that ranks above sovereign States, save for those that States themselves recognize as superior through a treaty. This is known as Westphalian Sovereignty, and is the basic framework that defines the entirety of international relations, and remains a core mechanic of international law to this day.

The norm-based European order that arose from the Thirty Years’ War would eventually grow in complexity and normativity, and would spread to the rest of the world in the wake of European imperialism and global preeminence during the two following centuries. With religious tolerance codified on a legal level, and States recognized as the primary agents of the international system, European diplomacy began to move towards the so-called peace conference system: the creation of fora for States to interact and resolve disputes. This system would peak during the European Concert, and the current United Nations are built on the strengths and weaknesses displayed by the conference system over the centuries.

The Thirty Years’ War began as the largest religious war in European history, but the Peace that ended it became the turning point of international relations. At Westphalia, European countries first plotted their course towards the international system as we know it today.

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French football

As with so many other Europeans nations, French football is often summed up by a stereotype of its people. French football has been characterised by ups and downs, and a lot of arrogant stars, who thought they and their clique was more important that the team. As well as leadership which instead of solving the issues, seemed to care more about the respect of their authority.

This culminated in a training strike during the World Cup in 2010. Now a lot of us might think nothing is more French than going on strike, but you simply cannot perform at top level of international football if everyone from the players, to the support staff, the manager, the coaches, and the suits in the federation do not all work together. The details are everything at this level.

2010 was a real wake-up call for the French. Laurent Blanc took over as manager of the national team. Discipline was introduced, the troublemakers from 2010 were sanctioned. In 2012 Didier Deschamps (another 1998 World Cup winner, just like Blanc) took over, and built what is today the French national team. A team that does not consist of just the best players, but instead avoids the uncontrollable egos, which in the past was more hassle than anything else for the French.

Just as Germany invested heavily in talent infrastructure about 15 years ago, then France did this as early as the late 1980s. France have for a long time been trying to find a formular, which would keep them at the top of global football, and it did get them there in 1998, when they won the World Cup at home (their only win so far). But the internal problems with attitudes took longer, and not until 2016 were France really ready to shine again after the 1998 (and Euro 2000) winning generation.

France plays a modern 4-3-3. This means it is attacking with many players. Sometimes it is formed as a 4-1-4-1 or a 4-2-3-1, but essentially it remains a formation with 4 defenders, 3 central midfielders, 2 wingers, and 1 in the box striker. Although the players often switch around in their tactical roles. The idea of this formation is that every player has a lot of technical freedom, which fits the French style of large egos well.

Where do the French play?

In top tier clubs all over Europe. Those who play in France play for the big 4 (PSG 3, Marseilles 3, Monaco 2, and Lyon 1), while the 14 other are 6 in Spain (Barcelona 2, Atletico Madrid 2, Real Madrid 1, and Sevilla 1), 5 in England (Chelsea 2, Tottenham 1, Manchester United 1, Manchester City 1) 2 in Germany (Bayern Munich and Stuttgart), and 1 in Italy (Juventus).

The starting lineup has players from clubs able to challenge for the Champions League trophy in England, Spain, Italy, and France, and then the odd Stuttgart player (he might well play somewhere else after this World Cup).

This team has everything needed to win a World Cup, and it has many of the same players, as the team that lost in the 109th minute to Portugal in the Euro 2016 final.

Political influence and national narrative

France is a multicultural country with a long colonial history, and possessions around the world. A lot of poor migrants often have football as the best shoot at making at improving their lot in life. Football is a way out of poverty and potentially crime for a lot of players at the World Cup.

In the late 90s the French football national team was of every kind of ethnicity, which has brought the anger of the French far-right, but it is also a symbol of integration and unity. Which it still is today. As with many other nations, then a football win is an opportunity to bridge many social gaps. Overcome racism, take the self-determination debate down a couple of notches, and just come together as people. Restart bad relationships and turn them into something good. Football is a way to build bridges. Some of them take a lot of work, but in the end they seem to slowly pay off. France has a lot of work in redefining its post-colonial identity along with a great influx of migration and a continuing terrorist threat.

A terrorist threat which in 2015 not only targeted the concert at Bataclan, but also the French national football teams home friendly game against Germany. Football is meant to be a substitute for violence, and a peaceful way to settle our differences on the pitch. Neither hooliganism or terrorism has a place in that equation. This notion was clearly on display at France’s next football game. Away in London playing England at Wembley, the French were treated as if they were the home team in a show of what European unity looks like in face of mindless violence. Football might not be able to solve our problems, but games are an event to show our solidarity and humanity.

Group and expectations

France have struggled, but are already through from the group. They won very narrowly 2-1 against Australia and 1-0 over Peru. In their last group game they face Denmark, who with a draw are through (even if Australia beat Peru). If Denmark win, then they win the group. So with a draw or win France likely face the winner of Nigeria or Argentina (with a draw: Nigeria), who play each other in their third group game, as group C and D are paired in the round of 16. With a couple of miracles maybe Iceland could go through, but do not expect it. With a loss to Denmark, then France is 99% certain to play Croatia. Traditional expectations would dictate that Argentina finish second, so there might not be any advantage for France in winning the group.

So while France has not impressed so far, then it would still be the smarter choice to let the reserves play against Denmark. This means France might likely again struggle. However, this in no way should retract from the fact that French football is one of the best in the world. France might well still win the World Cup as they have the talent in their team to just get through, when they need to. Do not count out the French just yet, and if they face Argentina in ro16, then expect a very interesting game of two underachieving giants trying to vindicate a poor showing in their group. And who knows from there. France seemed to struggle just as much in the group at Euro 2016, and they only lost the final of the tournament in extra-time to Portugal…

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France has been absent only two times and has won five times. Along with Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom, its one of the “Big Five” who are automatically in the final because they are the five biggest financial contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The “Big Five” is one of the aspect most critised of the current Eurovision.

The most recent winning of France is in 1977 when Marie Myriam won with the song L’oiseau et l’enfant, so it’s quite a lot of time that France does not wins the competition.

This year the country will be represented by the duo Madame Monsieur, formed by Emilie Satt and Jean-Karl Lucas.

After a few productive years as part of a folk group in English, the pair decided to break off from the project and sail towards their own destiny and Madame Monsieur was the result.

Vu d’ici (Seen From Here in English) Madame Monsieur’s first album reflects an almost urgent longing to relate to the world around them. The tweet of a journalist, aboard the humanitarian boat Aquarius, with the photo of a little girl born in the middle of the sea inspired the name of the first single Mercy.

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