Globalization And The EU: Will France Integrate And Cooperate?

Charles de Gaulle stated: “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.” Throughout history, France and its people have upheld an age-old tradition of fiery, strong nationalism and patriotism under the ideas of Charles de Gaulle. However, in recent years, this nationalism has come under fire by the persistent push for European integration by various parties in France and the European Union. Since the passing of the Schuman Declaration in 1950, which established the European Coal and Steel Company, integration has been key in the development of European countries, although becoming increasingly controversial as it becomes more in-depth (Guyomarch, Machin and Ritchie 4). In the 21st century, France has increasingly seen it’s own nationalistic values, found in legacies such as Gaullism, being compromised by the push for European integration spearheaded by the EU. This compromise of values, combined with the lack of a bipartisan system and large-scale protests, has created a huge political backlash that is currently the number-one political challenge in France.Since the 1960’s, intellectual and political leaders such as Charles de Gaulle have strongly advocated France’s independence from the rest of Europe. Gaullism is defined in the Wikipedia online encyclopedia as “a desire for France's independence from foreign power.” This is the basic ideology of the French people, or at least until recently. The idea of European or global integration began to become mainstream only in 1992, with the passing of the Maastricht Treaty, which was the first major push towards a formal European integration. In true spirit of French nationalism, only 51% of citizens who voted on this treaty voted to ratify it (Flood 57). From this rose extreme division between those who supported European integration and those who did not. The main reason for the ratification of this treaty is because with the signing of the treaty, a new, international currency was to be created by 2000. Those who opposed this treaty opposed the idea of an international economy, specifically international interest rates (Guyomarch, Machin and Ritchie 8). Those who rose up against this international integration began to adopt the idea of “Euroscepticism”, which is defined as “Doubt or hostility concerning the advance of European integration (Flood 41).” The citizens who opposed integration formed a far-left political party to mobilize against the globalization called Attac (Association pour une taxation des transactions financières pour l’aide aux citoyens) (Waters 855). This group is spearheaded by French intellectuals from universities, press and political circles (860). This group is increasing in popularity as the obvious flaws in EU planning are becoming more evident. One-fifth of the total French population aligned with anti-EU far-left in the 2...