More severe than their neighbors on the effectiveness of the European Union, the French people want common policies on migration, climate or defense.
by
While France is preparing to take the presidency of the Council of the European Union, the January 1, the French remain the most defiant and less informed Europeans on Europe and its construction. This form of Euroscepticism, which emerges from a survey in early December by the Jacques Delors Institute, CEVIPOF and the Kantar Center, paradoxically tinged with strong expectations compared to the European Union (EU), settled. The last twenty-five years and should not be defeated in six months of French Presidency, despite the emphasis on the government on the concept of “belonging to Europe”. “The feeling of belonging was etiped,” said Emmanuel Macron on December 6 at a given reception in Paris on the occasion of the twenty-five years of the Delors Institute. And the head of state acknowledged a “big challenge to get people who are not interested in Europe”.
Of course, 56% of French people remain attached to Europe, including its values of peace and free movement, but half of them express a mistrust against Brussels (8 points more than the European average ), placing France at the same level as Greece. With Austria and Denmark, hexagon is also at the heart “of a geography of discontent”, underlines the report, where parties strongly opposed to European integration are primary political forces. The authors, however, nuance this rejection of Europe, recalling that these courses thrive more on migration and security issues or the rejection of elites than on the European issue. The survey confirms that the most Europhiles of the French are young, graduates, urban, and prospects rather left.
Sign of real ambivalence, if they consider more than their neighbors that the EU is not “effective” (56%, compared to 47% on average), the French want more decisions to be taken At European level on important issues: common migration, defense or environmental policy. And three quarters of them are pronounced for the maintenance of the monetary union.
In addition, the image of the EU that had deteriorated sharply after the 2008 financial crisis, seems to improve since the beginning of the pandemic, thanks in particular to the distribution of vaccines and the establishment European stimulus plans. The health crisis was also an opportunity for the French – of which only a quarter was saying a good level of information on European issues in January, compared to 40% on average – to feel “better informed” on the functioning of the EU. An evolution of the head of state, Monday: in the fight against the virus, “the EU has been effective and generous” and the vaccine represented “the best tangible proof of what can bring Europe “.
You have 39.68% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.