Edmund Burke was "at the same time a fervent advocate of English power (and the British Empire) and deeply attached to the narrower solidarities on which small nations are built", the former French president, Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing, told a meeting in Trinity College last night.
This was food for thought in the age of European Union. "European Union is made of constituent national identities which should not be discarded, but protected by creating a delicate balance between the Union, the nation-states and regional solidarities".
Addressing the Historical Society on the bicentenary of Burke's death, Mr Giscard said Burke's patriotism was "the opposite of revolutionary patriotism, which only cherished in its homeland the political system which respected `human rights'.
"Conversely, he never refused to disapprove of injustice or to call for far-reaching reforms or courageous and innovative decisions when they were needed. Burke was not exhorting his contemporaries not to change anything: he was only taking the notion of duration into consideration - this attitude set him apart from the revolutionaries.
"With them it is a sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things, because it is an old one. As to the new, they are in no sort of fear with regard to the duration of a building run up in haste; because duration is no object to those who think little or nothing has been done before their time, and who place all their hopes in discovery', " Mr Giscard quoted Burke as saying in Reflections on the Revolution in France.