Europe used to be a constant in French politics: no mainstream party questioned the benefits of further integration. This year the taboo has been broken. First François Hollande, the Socialist challenger for the presidency, said that if elected, he would renegotiate the eurozone’s new fiscal pact. Then Nicolas Sarkozy declared France could pull out of the Schengen zone of border-free travel and threatened to take unilateral, protectionist measures on trade that would clearly be viewed as illegal in Brussels.
在法國政治中,歐洲曾經是一個不存在變數的問題,沒有哪個主流政黨質疑過增進歐洲一體化的好處。然而今年,這個「禁忌」被打破了。先是向總統大權發起挑戰的社會黨候選人法蘭索瓦•歐蘭德(François Hollande)表示,如果能夠當選,就會對歐元區的新財政協定重新進行談判。隨後,尼古拉•薩科奇(Nicolas Sarkozy)又宣稱法國可能退出申根(Schengen)自由跨境旅行區,還威脅採取單邊的貿易保護主義措施,而這種措施在布魯塞爾看來肯定是非法的。