French embrace dream of closer EU integration

Date: 02/05/1996

OF Europe's mainstream political parties, none sings the anthem and waves the flag with more fervent patriotism than France's Rassemblement pour la République (RPR).

Following a ritual harking back to 'mon général' himself, Gaullist leaders addressing the faithful pepper their speeches with large helpings of national grandeur, spice them with threats of Socialist-led decline and close with a promise to boost their country's international clout - alternatively described as le rang de la France (France's rank) or its rayonnement (no translation).

To these staunch loyalists of the nation state, the 1990s must appear as the decade of paradox.

On the face of it, the early 1990s have brought triumph, sweeping the Gaullists back into almost unchallenged power after 21 years of painful exile from the gilded offices of the Elysée Palace.

But if all goes according to plan, the closing years of the 20th century will also be those when a Gaullist leader will irrevocably sign away one of the foundations of national sovereignty - by agreeing to establish a European Monetary Union designed to trigger an unprecedented transfer of power away from Europe's centuries-old capitals.

One year after Jacques Chirac's election to the presidency, doubts that the Gaullists would abide by the terms of the Maastricht Treaty and go through with the biggest single step in the history of European integration have all but disappeared.

While confirming his reputation as a temperamental volcano given to undiplomatic outbursts, Chirac has largely managed to shed the loose-cannon image which had cast doubts over his ability to run France with a steady hand.

Bolstering the French franc's strength against the deutschemark, uncertainty over Chirac's readiness to administer the bitter medicine which will secure French participation in monetary union in 1999 no longer dominates the financial markets' thinking.

In a sign of his determination, the president - despite a rocky ride in opinion polls (which drive the political debate in France far more than they do in other countries) - has resisted pressure to dismiss his unpopular Prime Minister Alain Juppé. This aloof technocrat's presence at the head of government is generally perceived as a guarantee that France will stick to the economic convergence commitments enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty.

In private conversations with journalists, Chirac - whom some admittedly still credit with the ability to engineer a sudden 180-degree about-turn - has repeatedly rejected French parliament president Philippe Séguin's lobbying for the premiership, pointing to the latter's anti-Maastricht credentials.

The virtually unchallenged dominance within the French right of politicians favouring further European integration and closer cooperation with Germany is significant for the degree of consensus that has been achieved within the French Establishment on the country's future relationship with Europe.

Back in the early 1980s, both Gaullists and Socialists were still earnestly debating alternative solutions. Today, the best that senior figures such as Peugeot-Citroën president Jacques Calvet, who dispute that a prosperous and stable future for France depends on intense EU cooperation, can hope for is to be listened to as 'rent-a-quote' mavericks.

The Establishment's decision to support a European future of supranational integration, reflected in, among other things, the increasing ability and readiness of top politicians and business leaders to speak English, has arguably widened the cultural chasm between France's élite of homogenously-trained mandarins and its growing underclass of urban and rural poor.

While opinion polls regularly indicate strong popular support for close cooperation with Germany and a further pooling of sovereignty with European partners, more than a third of French voters seem ready to support parties or politicians opposing the established consensus.

Yet opposition to what is often and sometimes disparagingly called la pensée unique has so far failed to coalesce into a political force strong enough to disturb the traditional share-out of power at the top of French politics. With the two forces at the extremes of the political spectrum - the Communists on the left and the National Front on the right - arguing forcibly against European integration, almost all mainstream politicians too openly opposed to the Maastricht-design for Europe, such as the Socialist's Jean-Pierre Chevenement or the rightist Philippe de Villiers, have been pushed out or voluntarily moved to the fringes of their parties.

The one exception is Séguin, who remains a potentially important player in the Parisian power game. The parliament's wily president is enough of a tactician to have recently qualified his opposition to the treaty, thereby improving his chances of some day stepping into Juppé's shoes.

But Séguin still embodies the Gaullist approach to French history, at the heart of which stands the Messianic conviction that France is endowed with a 'manifest destiny' which sets it apart from other countries and forbids it from allowing itself to be blended into a supranational European political entity.

The dwindling influence of this school of thought in France, combined with the increasing dominance of the Bundesbank over European financial markets and interest rates, explains why the French Establishment has so readily agreed to give up the franc and pool monetary sovereignty with its powerful German neighbour.

Chirac's election to the Elysée has done nothing to alter the perception prevailing in Paris that the relationship with Germany is, and will continue to be, the focal point of French foreign and economic policy.

While the Gaullist Chirac and the federalist German Chancellor Helmut Kohl disagree on the extent of power they would like to transfer to truly supranational Brussels institutions, such as the European Parliament and the European Commission, with Chirac preferring to conduct business in the Council of Ministers, both men view a strong relationship with their neighbour on the other side of the Rhine as the overriding priority in their dealings with the outside world.

With Germany leading the federalist camp in the Union, the extent to which Kohl will get his sometimes reluctant French partner to accept his vision of a Europe supranationally governed from Brussels will be one of the determining factors for the outcome of the Intergovernmental Conference.

But senior German diplomats privately insist that the IGC's outcome is likely to be of relatively small importance in determining the speed of the transfer of power away from Bonn and Paris to Brussels, compared with the enormous integrationist momentum that monetary union and its consequences for European economic and fiscal policy will provide.

The Socialist opposition in France, meanwhile, is still busy recovering from the devastating defeat it suffered at the hands of the electorate during the last parliamentary elections in 1993.

With Socialist leader Lionel Jospin patiently rebuilding a party machinery devastated by bitter infighting during the twilight years of the reign of former President François Mitterrand, the most effective threat to the liberal-conservative majority in French parliament currently comes from the far-right National Front.

But few expect the next French parliamentary elections in 1998 to produce a result likely to threaten the country's determination to fulfil the federalist commitment enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty.

Set against Germany's Social Democrats' recent wobbles over their resolve to go through with monetary union in 1999, France - notwithstanding its perennial hankering after a special place in history - appears to have forged a consensus around Europe that is as stable as that of its integrationist neighbour.