After the UK’s referendum on membership of the EU, France is now being forced to look at itself in the mirror, and ask whether it still wishes to belong to the community of nations initiated by two Frenchmen, Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, half a century ago. Will France rally around the European ideal and forge an alliance with Germany to save the EU? Or will it follow the UK and become a gravedigger of the European project? The latter is more likely.
France faces a harsh and divisive campaign leading up to the presidential election in May 2017. After the vote for Brexit, it is hard to imagine that the main candidates will not make Europe one of their main priorities.
Meanwhile, the Pew Research Center has recently provided striking new data on what the French think of Europe. Pew’s report shows that 61 per cent of French people hold unfavourable views of the EU, against 38 per cent who view it favourably. Sixty per cent of those surveyed said they wished that the French government would focus on the country’s own problems, as opposed to “helping other countries” (36 per cent). Fifty-two per cent said France should pursue its own national interests.