[PRESS ARTICLE] Cautrès, B., Chopin T. et Rivière E., « Europe’s necessary return to France », El País – Agenda Pública, 21 mai 2020
This 9th of May we were celebrating, in a very peculiar context, the 70th anniversary of the ‘Schuman Declaration’, the founding act of European integration launched by France. Although the Covid-19 crisis has eclipsed this anniversary, it nevertheless raises a pertinent issue of the complex and paradoxical relationship that the French seem to have with Europe.
Acting alternatively as the ‘engine’ and ‘brake’ of the European construction, France is both at the origin of its greatest advances and its most notable ‘stops’, including, 15 years ago, the rejection in France of the ‘European Constitution’. Since then, and after 10 years of crises, French distrust in the EU seems to have grown even more, despite the willingness of the French authorities, notably President Macron, to carry an ambitious strategic vision of the future of the EU.
