Paris Letter:Pierre Rosanvallon, professor of modern history and contemporary politics at the Collège de France, concluded with an exhortation: "We absolutely must have a public debate on Europe. One and a half years after the non vote [ in the constitutional treaty referendum], we cannot remain in this state of stupor."
Rosanvallon has written 10 books on French politics and democracy, the most recent of which, Counter-Democracy, examines distrust of government in western societies. The theories hatched by his "République des Idées" study group are reaching a wide audience, largely because they've been (mis?)appropriated by the socialist presidential candidate, Ségolène Royal.
"Ideas are in the public domain," Rosanvallon said, shrugging off the question of his influence over Royal. "One may appropriate them in a more or less approximate way. My engagement as an intellectual is not to support a particular person's candidacy, but to make our fellow citizens more lucid about democracy."
The fact that some 200 people crowded into a stuffy room on a rainy weekday night to hear Rosanvallon talk about the "democratic deficit" in Europe is evidence that France's European conscience bubbles away beneath the surface stupor. The meeting was organised by Europartenaires, a debating society run by Jean-Noël Jeanneney, the president of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Europe is not dysfunctional, Rosanvallon protested. Au contraire, it exemplifies key trends in western democracy.
The first trend is the subordination of what Rosanvallon calls "institutional or electoral legitimacy" to "the legitimacy of impartiality". Electoral legitimacy "is something one possesses", whereas "legitimacy of impartiality is something that must be proven every day. An impartial institution must always give reasons, explain." Polls in western countries show that, given the choice, the public always prefers a report, investigation or decision to be undertaken by an independent body rather than the government.
Another aspect of impartiality is the importance placed on procedure. "If you ask citizens what is more important, the final decision or the way it is reached, there is a clear preference for procedure," Rosanvallon says. That is why Americans prefer that important questions be addressed by the Supreme Court - where judges strive for impartiality and where deliberations are published - rather than by the government.
Until now, social policy in western democracies was about the redistribution of wealth, protection and regulation, Rosanvallon says. Europe has added the dimension of human rights, largely through jurisprudence in the European court. As a result, he says, labour negotiations increasingly address the question of "the dignity of workers". Rosanvallon says Europe's reluctance to redistribute wealth within the EU has prevented it from becoming an authentic community, and thus made it impossible to create a "political Europe".
"The basic bone of contention is social redistribution," chimed in Elisabeth Guigou, the former European affairs minister who founded Europartenaires. "[ Former president of the European Commission Jacques] Delors doubled structural funding and talked about a shared fate with new members. But it stopped when he left," she said. "New member states fight with the weapons they have: fiscal and social dumping."
"The citizens of Europe were tricked into believing they were building a political space," Rosanvallon continued. "That means a space wherein wealth is redistributed, a community. Europe is not a political space. It's better to say so forcefully, because disappointment boomerangs."
The year 2005 was "when it all fell apart", he said. "It was a crisis of meaning." Guigou asked whether it was still possible to create a political Europe, "or should we establish more modest objectives? I don't believe for one moment in the United States of Europe."
After the lecture, I talked to Sylvie Goulard, who teaches at the College of Europe in Bruges. "The French are so pessimistic compared to other Europeans!" she moaned. "Enlargement was a great achievement. Unfortunately it was 'sold' with the guilt argument - that we owed it to the east Europeans, and that's never a healthy basis for a relationship."
Every French minister for European affairs has held a European awareness campaign, yet Rosanvallon claimed there was no public debate. "We need to set aside syrupy platitudes and talk about the problems," he said.
Pierre-Jérôme Henin, spokesman for the European affairs ministry, noted that since the fatal French referendum on May 29th, 2005, the French minister for European affairs, Catherine Colonna, has established monthly ministerial meetings on Europe, initiation trips to Brussels and Strasbourg for French parliamentarians, and semi-annual meetings on Europe with French unions and management.
The French website touteleurope.fr is the second-biggest institutional site in the world, after the official EU site europa.eu.int, says Henin. The education and defence ministers are injecting European content into curricula and the brief military training periods young French people must attend.
So how did Henin explain the perception that the French aren't interested in Europe? "There's no collective ambition at the highest level," Henin sighs. "The machine works, but the breath of ambition is not there."
