Justine Lacroix

Université libre de Bruxelles

In 2008-2009:
Deakin Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford University
jlacroix@ulb.ac.be

ROUGH DRAFT – Please do not quote

«Borderline» Europe
French political thought and European integration

Abstract

Since the hard-won ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the European issue has emerged as a bone of
contention among French political philosophers. More precisely it is the question of the locus – i.e. a territory
delineated by well-defined frontiers – that is now at the core of the French theoretical interrogation over the
democratic legitimacy of European integration. From this common critical stance have emerged two distinctive
intellectual trends whose approaches to the European “model” are diametrically opposed. For a first strand of
thought - the most prominent of it being Marcel Gauchet, Pierre Manent or Paul Thibaud -, the “problem with
Europe” lies first and foremost in its disembodied nature. In their view, Europe presents itself as an area in
perpetual expansion, thus seemingly renouncing being a political object worthy of the name. It is therefore the
very absence of a “political body” conferring identity and security to Europe that would be, according to these
authors, the cause of the present difficulties in European construction. In many aspect, these critical discourses
against the European process echo the three typical arguments described by Albert O. Hirschman as permanent
features in the rhetoric of reaction.
The second critical approach, which is closer to the radical Left and mainly defended in the work of philosopher
Etienne Balibar, envisions Europe as a space in which the democratic process and the relativization of frontiers
could have taken place. An “ideal” Europe should have contributed to the emergence of a universal right to move
and settle everywhere. Hence a feeling of disenchantment when considering the latest development in European
construction. By remaining strictly defined by and attached to national identities, European citizenship would
perpetuate the “European apartheid” denying basic civic rights to non-European residents. Far from relativizing
national ties, Europe would rather further and reinforce them.

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 Introduction

In the last fifteen years - since the hard-won ratification of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 - the
question of Europe has emerged as a bone of contention among French political philosophers. To be
sure, not all French intellectuals are political theorists. However, a vast majority of those who have
recently expressed an articulated opinion on the European process are (or were) professors in political
philosophy either in one of the Parisian universities, at Sciences-Po or in the Ecole des Hautes Etudes
en Sciences Sociales. This might confirm the conclusions of Tony Judt in his study of the French
intellectuals between 1944 and 1956. At the end of Past Imperfect, Judt pointed out the
correspondence between the decline of the great public intellectuals – whose renown and income
derive largely from their journalism and books – and the resurrection of the university professors.
Whereas the former suffer from no constraints, the latter “may publish and appear in a variety of
media, but their credibility (and initial status) remain firmly grounded in an academic discipline, its
rule and its material” (Judt 1992, p. 296). Consequently, “these figures enter the intellectual arena as
experts, even if they are then free to express an opinion on matters well beyond their professional
range, most commonly in the pages of Commentaire or Le Débat” (Judt, 1992, p. 296).
Regarding the debate on Europe, so far, attention has been almost exclusively focused on “national”
reactions to European construction, thus somehow missing the real point. Indeed current theoretical
debates (i.e. those which have taken place since the failed referendum on the European Constitution)
do not pit anti-European against pro-European thinkers. None of the authors analysed in this paper
opposes the principle of co-operation between European States or calls for a return to purely national
considerations. However, it remains striking how disillusioned French contemporary political thinkers
are on the European issue. Under its present form, the European process is the butt of severe, yet
contradictory, criticisms.
If one considers the debates that have aroused around the failed referendum on the European
Constitution in 2005, it is the question of the locus – i.e. a territory delineated by well-defined frontiers
– which is now at the core of the French theoretical reflection over the democratic legitimacy of
European integration. The paradoxical point is that the various perceptions of Europe - seen either as
an “undefined”, open space or an “exclusive” entity centred on its own particularities - are in total
contradiction. Hence the title of the present chapter : “Borderline Europe”1 which refers, beyond a
mere play on words, to the starkly contrasting representations of Europe and the necessity to address
the question of “boundaries” in the crystallisation of intellectual approaches to European construction.
Against this backdrop can also be discerned a more fundamental controversy on the meaning attached
to “rights” in democratic politics. Europe is either conceived of as the symptom of “a religion of law”

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A “borderline” personality is characterised by changing moods. Psycho-analysts also use the term “borderline
states” to describe ambivalent identities and brutal shifts from love to hate.

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which supposedly undermines democracy or conversely blamed for its incapacity to effectively
implement the human rights it endlessly claims to represents.
Put differently, the founding postulate of the present analysis is that diverging approaches to the
relation between law and politics have initiated diverging conceptions of Europe which still prevail
today among French thinkers. It is therefore necessary to go back over the evolution of French
reflection on that matter over the last three decades.
In the 1970s, philosopher Claude Lefort was one of the first authors to analyse the changing nature of
politics. In his study of totalitarian regimes in the Soviet bloc, he revisited Western democracy. In his
view, liberal democracy was buttressed on social pluralism, the eroding power of fundamental rights
and disembodied politics. On the contrary, totalitarian regimes were characterized by the myth of “a
society without any internal divisions, exerting full control over its own organization and constantly
self-referring in all its components” (Lefort 1980, p. 98). By contrast, “of all the regimes known
today, democracy is the only one which makes it possible for social cleavages to exist and be
effectively felt” (Lefort 1980, p. 148). The affirmation that human rights were inviolable and
inalienable paved the way for the expression of social plurality in politics. In his criticism of the
excessively restrictive Marxist vision of human rights, Lefort emphasized the ideological and social
dynamics attached to the affirmation of the prevalence of fundamental rights. In that sense the fight
for human rights was essentially a political fight. But it implied that the obsessive pursuit of unity by
traditional regimes, exacerbated as it were by totalitarianism, should be relinquished. Democracy was
in total opposition with the very idea of incarnated power: “Democracy tacitly turns power into an
empty locus and lays down the principle that power belongs to no one by law” (Lefort, 1980, p. 149).
These themes have until now remained predominant in theoretical debates on contemporary
democracy in France. From this common critical stance two distinctive intellectual trends have
emerged, each approaching the European model from diametrically opposed viewpoints.
A first strand of thought has adopted a nuanced or even critical stance towards a political approach
to human rights. As I will show in the first part of the paper, authors such as Marcel Gauchet and
Pierre Manent consider that the dynamism of pluralist society might eventually undermine
democracy itself. Democracy exhausts itself in its efforts to promote human rights politics and the
implementation of democratic principles leads to “weakening democracy, or even more
fundamentally, (to) dissolving its framework and instruments” (Gauchet 2005a, p. 536). In their
view Lefort made the mistake of placing too much emphasis on individual rights thus blurring the
political references that shaped the modern democratic process. This school of thinkers can be
called “conservative”. Of course, their attachment to democratic principles and individual rights
cannot be denied. However, they share the same mistrust in a certain form of “democratic
fundamentalism” and its corollary – extolling law as the ultimate regulator of social life.
Moreoever, there is an obvious correlation between their theoretical reflections on human rights and
their present analyses of the European integration process. Europe serves as an illustration of “the

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dissolving power of human rights” and of the pernicious effects of exacerbated individualism. In
the second part of the paper, I will try to show how these types of critical discourses against the
European process echo the three typical arguments described by Albert O. Hirschman as permanent
features in the rhetoric of reaction.
By contrast, a distinct school of thinkers has taken up and furthered Lefort’s theory of democracy as
an empty locus. According to Jacques Rancière, democracy is “the very principle of politics, the
principle that establishes political power by founding ‘good government’ on the very absence of its
foundations” (Rancière 2005, p. 44). Democracy is “anybody’s government” (Rancière 2005, p.
103), contrary to the totalitarian or oligarchic forms of government which appropriate power for the
sake of a caste. Social plurality which furthers resistance to the domination of a self-proclaimed
elite engenders a democratic process conceived of as a permanent reconfiguration of social
cleavages. Democracy is “the action of citizens who, working on the borders of their specific
identities, redefine the contours of what is private and what is public, what is universal and what is
specific” (Rancière 2005, p. 69). This perpetual motion is the prime mover of democratic life. “The
very vitality of our parliaments has been fostered by extra- or anti-parliamentarian political action
which has turned politics into a confrontation of not only diverging opinions but also opposed
worlds” (Rancière 2005, p. 85). Human rights rhetoric lies at the very core of the democratic
process since it aims to redefine the boundaries between the private and public spheres, between the
universal and the particular.
Jacques Rancière has not written on Europe, which is the main reason why I will not delve into his
theories, but his radical views are shared by those I propose to call “liberal revolutionary” thinkers.
Under the leadership of philosopher Etienne Balibar, these authors initially viewed European
construction as an opportunity to rejuvenate the democratic ambition and revive the original
radicalism of the 1789 Revolution. They envisioned Europe as a space in which the democratic
process and the relativisation of frontiers could take place. An “ideal” Europe should contribute to
the emergence of a universal right to move and settle everywhere. Hence a feeling of
disenchantment when considering the latest development in European construction. By remaining
strictly defined by and attached to national identities, European citizenship thus perpetuates the
“European apartheid” denying basic civic rights to non-European residents. Far from relativising
national ties, Europe has rather furthered and reinforced them.

I. Undefined Europe or the Utopia of Law

For a first strand of French political thought, the “problem with Europe” is that it lacks any real
substance. Europe is “disembodied” because it is devoid of what is at the core of any effective political
community, i.e. the collective feeling of being part of a common political project and of sharing a

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common identity with fellow citizens. If there is such a thing as a feeling of belonging to the European
Union, it is confined to the happy few who have been unable so far to formalise and spread this notion
(Gauchet 2005b, p. 11) Hence the European paradox: if one considers the similarities that exist
between the European nations and their converging aspirations “nothing justifies that they should
remain separate (…) But nothing in the ties that link them together offers any foundation for a political
entity (…) The civilisation, the civilisational process, that gathers the European nations, is not political
in itself” (Gauchet 2005a, p. 482). As underlined by Aron, the initial error made by the Founding
Fathers was to ignore the Hegelian distinction – developed by Marx in The Jewish Question – between
the members of the civil society and the citizens. Almost half a century of European integration has
clearly revealed the limits in the functionalist theory according to which mass culture – lagging behind
the culture of the elites – would eventually adapt to the social and economic changes in scale. It should
be admitted that converging interests, values and ways of life are not enough to engender some form
of common political awareness. According to Gauchet, there might even be an inverse correlation
between a high degree of mutual knowledge and a low degree of peaceful relations between people.
As the Other is no longer a potential threat, one may now indulge in some form of “sound
indifference” and see, for instance, no need to learn a second language. Substituting “high level
compromises” for past emulation and competition has therefore led to a decline in the process of
mutual learning (Gauchet 2005b, p. 11).
Europe does not only seem to be unable to emerge as a new political entity. It even appears to revel in
its inherently undefined nature – the supposedly ultimate stage of a democracy that has relinquished its
“old rags”, i.e. a people, a territory or specific national customs (Manent 2006b, p. 91-93). In that
respect the prevailing role given to the concepts of “individual universalism” and “passion for
similarities” has contributed to undermining from within any attempt at defining a new federal nation
in a well-defined territory. This so-called “implacable lever” has been decisive in imposing
enlargement to the East and accepting accession negotiations with Turkey – two phenomena that
illustrate Europe’s blind pursuit of “a dissolution of the political bodies” (Gauchet 2005a, p. 489).
Manent makes a similar analysis of the European model which he regards as only one aspect of the
larger individualisation trend that makes any attempt at differentiating between various agents
“odious” since “no group, no communion, no people is any longer legitimate” (Manent 2006, p. 18).
According to this author, Europe has become purely and simply open to the whole of mankind, thus
losing or refusing any specific existence as a proper entity.
Such a radical opinion was already expressed by Jean-Claude Milner in a book he published in 2003.
In his view a Europe without borders would imply the dissolution of politics – which is necessarily
buttressed on finite entities – in a society whose very principle is the absence of limits. Europe would
embody the dream of a “totally new political form, as unlimited as society is, in which powers could
be multiplied infinitely and borders would no longer be meaningful”. Just like Manent, Milner laid
emphasis on the “Turkish question”. Indeed, whether Turkey eventually joins the European Union or

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not, “the very fact that such a question could be envisaged proves one thing: Europe acknowledges no
geographical or historical limits today (…). What only matters is the homogeneity of society” (Milner
2003, p. 96).
In a more nuanced approach, Gauchet underlines the fact that European universalism is “polycentric”
– unlike US universalism – since it stems from the combination of various nations without being
embodied in a single one or in the collective whole. “It is both its strength and its weakness” (Gauchet
2005a, p. 467). It is its strength because the European project is non-exclusive and open. It is also its
weakness because its “unencumbered” nature may account for the elitist nature of the European
model. Indeed such a disembodied Europe makes any real representation impossible, replaces the ideal
of self-government by some form of transcendence beyond public debate and deprives the weakest and
most disadvantaged of any form of specific protection.
On the future of the representative model, Manent’s approach is probably the sharpest: there can be no
political equality without a sovereign State and a well-defined people. It is only because a State is
more legitimate than any other entity that it can create political equality between individuals (Manent,
2006a, p. 18). Attached as Europeans may be to democracy, this principle will never be sufficient to
define a political body on which influence may be exerted. In that respect the French political thinkers’
critical approach to the European model cannot be assimilated to some form of denunciation of the
“democratic deficit” in European institutions. It is rather the contrary. Far from suffering from a lack
of formal democracy, the European model would embody the extravagant dream of “pure democracy”
based on the idea that universal principles need not necessarily be circumscribed to a well-defined
territory and embodied in a determined population (Manent 2006b, p. 92). As we have forgotten the
fact that universal civilisation (in the sense of the civilisation) might disappear if it is not based on a
specific political community, we have progressively emptied democracy – taken here in its original
sense of self-government of a political body – of its substance (Manent 2006a, p. 59). People have
therefore become an unhappy but docile herd submitted to multiple levels of governance whose main
objective is to stifle any collective action other than blind obedience to the rule of law. European
construction has replaced the concept of Nation by a “central human agency” intent on extending ever
more the area of pure democracy, respectful of human rights but with no collective foundation – a
democracy without the people, “a kratos without a demos” (Manent 2006a, p. 16) in which the
spreading of rules and regulations has superseded the intensification of collective will (Manent 2006a,
p. 28).
This analysis leads us to deal with the other perverse effect induced by the European model: the
reintroduction of some form of transcendence over political debate. Such transcendence of the norms
should not be understood here as the commonplace condemnation of the power of judges and experts
in the European development process. For Manent, the power of judges is the epiphenomenon of a
larger and wider trend that has progressively broken up the alliance between “law” and “power” in
favour of autonomous legal power. The prevalence of norms in the European model would thus be the

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expression of our “ethical radicalism” which shares with religious fundamentalism the idea that “the
right course to follow” is determined by its conformity to the rule of law. In both cases, political
debate is deprived of its legitimacy and of its raison d’être, so to speak.
It is also a matter of moral or material transcendence in so far as European construction is deemed to
be “irresistible” thus thwarting any form of political debate. The best illustration of it is the way
enlargement negotiations have been conducted so far. It is as though, to quote Gauchet, “European
leaders, for fear of political confrontation with their electors in real politics, had stuck to some form of
moral intimidation: this had to be done, so shut up” (Gauchet 2005b, p. 6). Another example could be
the refusal by the Dutch government to acknowledge the impact of the euro on the price index, which
shows how “European interests have become a form of raison d’Etat behind which governments
shelter and come to agreements at the expense of the people” (Gauchet 2005b, p. 12).
As Europe presents itself – in its action and rhetoric – as an area in constant expansion, its contours
have seemingly become so blurred that it is no longer a political object, i.e. an object that may meet
the fundamental expectations that citizens place in a political community, especially if they are weak
and deprived (Gauchet 2005a, p. 18). Such “symbolic blurring”, adroitly exploited as regards the aims
of European construction and combined with the boundless extension of its sphere of influence,
renders Europe unable to offer any concrete response on a fundamental issue essential to the making
of a modern State, i.e. the need for security (Lazorthes 2005, p. 60). Europe “does not protect”, not in
the technical sense of the word, but rather in as much as it does not represent a specific coherent entity
“that offers the shelter of collective density to vulnerable people” (Gauchet 2005a, p. 499). Europe
does not confer any identity or any bearings in time and space, thus depriving individuals of any
positive feeling on their place in the world which could help them envision their individual and
collective self. Contrary to the European elites who take delight in the absence of any precise
definition of Europe, ordinary citizens see it rather as a source of insecurity.
As a consequence, the difficulties attached to European construction do not lie so much in the transfer
or loss of national sovereignty as in a general feeling that the contours of the social and political body
have become uncertain. The conflicting issue is not between Nation-States and European institutions
but rather in the mind of the modern citizen who cannot reconcile his desire for independence and
collective ascendancy (Lazorthes, 2005, p. 61). It is therefore the question of the political “body” that
is at the very core of the divide between deterritorialised elites and people in search of territorial roots.
“Délocalisation” (outsourcing), the buzzword during the 2005 campaign for the ratification of the
European Constitutional Treaty, epitomizes “the divorce between salaried workers firmly rooted in
their everyday routine lives and the elites who champion the key-words of mobility and nomadism,
and even considered going into exile in case of a victory of the no vote”(Crapez, 2005, p. 830).
In such a context, European construction appears as the result of the primacy given to individual rights
in our societies. The “silent cosmopolitan revolution” engendered by the co-operation between the
European states has arguably contributed “to reinforcing the reign of legal universalism by furthering

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the mirage of a common space for the individuals, based on the nations but existing beyond these
nations” (Gauchet 2005a, p. 501). Some twenty-five years before, the same optical illusion had been
ascribed not to Europe but to “the human rights politics” deemed responsible for “the return of the old
ways, the dead end of a vision of man as opposed to society, the old illusion that the individual is the
founding stone and that we can start from the individual, his demands and his rights, all the way up to
arrive at the idea of society” (Gauchet 2002, p. 17). Europe is thus but the epiphenomenon of such a
change in which the Nation-State has become “potentially invisible, for the benefit of its creature, the
individual of universal right” (Gauchet 2002, p. 498). In other terms, Europe would indeed achieve
democracy, but a simplified form of democracy, i.e. “instead of a duality, or even tension, between the
individual and the citizen, the unilateral affirmation of the rights and equal opportunities of the
individuals” (Manent 2001, p. 106). European construction would only bring the finishing touches to
the passage from “the national State” to “the procedural State”, the completion of a metamorphosis
that has progressively put an end to “a world, a shared history, a common destiny” for the sole profit
of “a pure form of law” (Finkielkraut, 2007, p. 10). One clearly sees here that the European question is
not analysed as an object per se but is rather the continuation of the debate on “the dissolving power of
human rights”, the illustration in fact of the critical rhetoric on the pernicious effects of exacerbated
individualism. In that respect, Jacques Rancière has argued that the avowed liberal views held by some
French intellectuals since the 1980s pertained in fact to a double-edged doctrine. “Behind the reverent
homage paid to the Enlightenment and the Anglo-American tradition of liberal democracy and human
rights, is perceptible the old and typically French denunciation of the individualist revolution that is
tearing up the social fabric” (Rancière 2005, p. 22).

II. A Rhetoric of Reaction ?

In The Rhetoric of Reaction (1991), Albert O. Hirschman has shown that each stage in the
development of citizenship – the progressive emergence of civil, political and rights – was followed by
ideological counterthrusts of extraordinary force (Hirschman 1991, p.3). These three “reactionary
waves” conflicted respectively with the principle of equality in the eyes of the law, the introduction of
universal suffrage and the Welfare State. To a certain extent, the European project may be perceived
as “the fourth age of rights”, an age marked not so much by the emergence of new rights but by the
significant extension of their sphere of influence beyond national borders. Indeed, the European Union
citizenship carries only a few rights that establish a direct link between the citizen and the Union – the
right to participate in the elections of the European Parliament, to petition it and to use the services of
the European ombudsman. From a legal perspective, the European citizenship is transnational since
the rights attached to it mainly refers to the relations between the citizens of one state and another
state. Concretely, “citizens are not only allowed to move, they also and most importantly have the

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right, when they are on the territory of another Member state, to be treated as if they were not
foreigners” (Magnette, 2007). European citizenship thus mirrors the core objective of the European
project, i.e. the progressive erosion of the frontiers of national citizenship.
This erosion of the absolute dimension of the Nation-State has given rise to a number of reactionary
waves. I would like here to use the word “reaction” in its most neutral meaning, following Hirschman
who regretted that this term should have taken on such a pejorative connotation – notably since the
French Revolution – which it did not originally have (Hirschman, 1991, p.8). He insisted on his desire
to attempt a ‘cool’ examination of surface phenomena : discourses, arguments, rhetoric, historically
and analytically considered”. In the process, he concluded that “discourse (is) shaped not so much by
fundamental personality traits, but simply by the imperatives of the arguments, almost regardless of
the desires, character or convictions of the participants”. This is the type of approach I would like to
adopt in my analysis of this first strand of French discourse on Europe. My objective is not to state
bluntly that all the authors studied are “reactionary”, especially as a significant number of them are
reflecting on the necessary articulation between Europe and nations. The idea is simply to demonstrate
how some types of critical discourse against European construction may echo the three typical
arguments described by Hirschman as permanent features in the rhetoric of reaction.
The first typical feature of the “rhetoric of reaction” rests, according to Hirschman, on “the thesis of
the perverse effect that holds that any purportive action to improve some features of the political,
social or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy” (Hirschman
1991, p.7). Put differently, “the attempt to push society in a certain direction will result in its moving
all right, but in the opposite direction” (Hirschman 1991, p.11). This echoes the theory recently
developed by Pierre Manent (Manent, 2006). In the first section, I have shown that according to this
author the European model would embody the extravagant dream of a “pure democracy” based on the
idea that universal principles need not necessarily be circumscribed to a well-defined territory and
embodied in a determined population. “In the name of democracy, or more precisely democratic
values, we have institutionalised the paralysis of democracy” (Manent, 2006, p. 59). In the very name
of democracy, we have progressively emptied democracy – taken here in its original sense of self-
government of a political body – of its substance. As Hirschman noted in a different context, the
authors who refer to the theory of the perverse effect often use expressions such as “well-meaning” or
“well-intentioned” when they describe those who started the chain of events that led to the perverse
result, portraying them “as lacking, ridiculously and perhaps culpably, in elementary understanding of
the complex interactions of social and economic forces” (Hirschman 1991, p. 76). But at least their
good faith is not impugned. “On the contrary, it functions as the necessary counterpart of their
incurable naïveté, which is the mission of enlightened social scientists to expose” (Hirschman 1991, p.
76). Criticism of the Europeans’ naïveté and misunderstanding of the intricacies of social and political
reality indeed seems to be one of the significant traits in contemporary opposition to European
construction. Authors often insist on the “innocence” of the Founding Fathers who honestly believed

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that converging behaviours and ways of life would be enough to create some form of common
consciousness (Thibaud 1992, p. 37). They highlight the lack of understanding of the national
dimension, an inherent trait in Habermas’ approach that dissociates the civic elements of a nation from
its ethnic or historical ones (Debray 1999 ; Finkielkraut 1999). They contend that the upholders of
constitutional patriotism have “forgotten” the necessary and specific medium that universal citizenship
requires (Gauchet 2005a, p. 481). They criticize their “absurd” belief in the overestimated role
supposedly played by the means of communication, as if a common language was enough to create a
community (Manent 2006, P. 44). They point to the “blindness” of the “missionary” European
bureaucracy which is well-meaning and well-intentioned but totally ignorant of social and political
realities (Gauchet 2005a, p. 493).
The second typical feature in the rhetoric of reaction, as identified by Hirschman, hinges on “the
futility thesis which holds that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will
simply fail to ‘make a dent’” (Hirschman, 1991, p.7) since “any alleged change is, was, or will be
largely surface, face cosmetics, hence illusory, as the ‘deep’ structures of society remain wholly
untouched” (Hirschman 1991, p. 41). Once again, the futility theory may be observed in the
assimilation between a modern nation and a democratic regime, hence the impossible principle of a
non-national form of citizenship. The link between democracy and nation being conceptual and not
circumstantial, European citizenship could only be envisioned if Europe should become a nation. Even
so, nothing would really change and it would be impossible to go beyond the national dimension. This
statement echoes the argument put forward by Raymond Aron, some thirty years ago, according to
which the idea of multinational citizenship was a contradiction in its very term (Aron 1974). In the
absence of a large “European nation”, there would be no alternative but to go back to the nation-State
(Gauchet 2005a, p. 502). Another exemple of the futility thesis may be observed in the argument
according to which fifty years of European integration have neither increased mutual knowledge
between the peoples of Europe (Gauchet 2005b, p. 11) nor expanded Europe’s influence in the world
(Manent 2006).
Hirschman points out a third permanent feature in the rhetoric of reaction – the jeopardy thesis.
According to this thesis, “the cost of the proposed change or reform is too high as it endangers some
previous, precious accomplishment” (Hirschman 1991, p.7). In his view, reactionary authors can thus
develop a progressive type of rhetoric as they show that this new reform would deal a fatal blow to
liberty or to some of the most precious, time-honoured and hard-won rights (Hirschman, 1991, p.84).
There are many examples of this jeopardy thesis in the writings of French intellectuals who criticize
the potential dangers that European construction represents. They first insist on the fact that the
extension of European rights would trigger a “depoliticization” process which might eventually
undermine the foundations of democratic autonomy. Thought they do not go as far as to say that
Europe alone should be blamed for democratic entropy, many authors contend that the European
project has greatly contributed to accelerating a double trend in contemporary liberal societies –

10
growing individualism and dwindling participation in public life because of the remoteness of the
decision-making centres. Citizens are no longer “authorities” that take an active part in the law-making
process, but “mere legal subjects” under the protection of the authorities. In a word they are users, and
no more citizens (Thibaud, 1992). There is secondly the idea that European construction would also be
detrimental to the pursuit of equality. Whereas the logic of national representation theoretically
guaranteed some form of equality among citizens, the complexity of the decision-making processes
would only estrange the underprivileged citizens who lack information. We could even speak of “a
stealthy return to a voting system based on the poll tax”, in which firms and lobbies are more like to
defend their interests with European institutions than ordinary citizens. (Debray, 1999, p. 93).
Paradoxically, most of these thinkers are often considered as ‘liberal’ in the anglo-american world.
This interpretation has notably been induced by Mark Lilla’s New French Thought (1994) which
pointed out a French return to liberalism after decades dominated by Marxism and structuralism2.
However, as far as Gauchet or Manent are concerned, this might be a misunderstanding. These authors
have indeed contributed to the rediscovery of some major liberal thinkers such as Constant or
Tocqueville. However, they do not define themselves as liberal and they works often display often
display some of antiliberalism’s distinguishing characteristics (for a convincing overview, see Audier
2008). Paradoxically, if liberal ideas have so far made some inroads in French political thought, it is
rather amongst certain radical left thinkers such as Etienne Balibar.

III. Exclusive Europe or a Failed Revolution

The criticism of the European model levelled by the “liberal revolutionary” thinkers is the exact
opposite of the theories I have just analysed. Far from illustrating the perverse consequences of “pure
democracy” founded on individual rights and abolished frontiers, these authors regard European
construction as a historical opportunity to revive the radical views originally expressed in the 1789
Declaration of Human Rights. Whereas many radical leftist theoreticians still combine their
revolutionary approach with a certain dose of anti-legalism, Etienne Balibar proposes what may
appear to be “the most accomplished theory of democracy which acknowledges the liberal heritage in
part while incorporating the legacy of Marx” (Raynaud 2006, p. 171).
In that respect Balibar’s positions are to be related to Claude Lefort’s analysis in which he
demonstrates that the prevalence of human rights is not solipsistic per se in so far as individual rights
always bind one subject to his community (Lefort 1998, p. 58). In the era of global capitalism Balibar
considers that the human rights rhetoric is the major instrument in the democratic struggle since it both
opposes social violence and challenges the limits of the rule of law. Human rights are thus given back
their initial revolutionary meaning as in 1789 when they contributed to hindering rather than furthering

2
In his book on the French intellectuals, Judt also considers Manent and Gauchet as members of a ‘tiny
minority’ of liberal thinkers (Judt 1992, p. 315).

11
the stabilisation of the liberal order (Raynaud 2006, p. 182). In Les frontières de la démocratie Balibar
implicitly responds to Gauchet by stating that “without human rights politics there can be no
democratic politics” (Balibar 1992). Consequently speaking out for human rights must be conceived of
as a radical discursive act of political deconstruction and reconstruction through the affirmation of “a
universal right to activism and political recognition, in all matters relative to the question of the
collective distribution of wealth, power and knowledge” (Balibar 1992, p. 247).
As shown by Philippe Raynaud, one may discern here a radical version of classical liberalism –
notably through the reference to the Anglo-American concept of civil disobedience (Raynaud 2006, p.
183). Even the strategic objectives of “human rights politics” are expressed in liberal language since
they aim to create new counter-powers adapted to the changes brought about by economic
globalisation and extend the modes of representation in order to include the deprived and most
disadvantaged (Raynaud 2006, p. 183).
Such an ambitious goal, which Balibar calls “equaliberty”, implies universalism. In its principle
democracy is limitless, which means that it is not only the rule of law but also an historical process
extending rights to the whole of mankind. That is the reason why, according to this strand of thought,
the main obstacle to democracy is probably not capitalism but nationalism, at least in its exclusive
meaning, i.e. “the amount of violence pertaining to the defence of an identity”, the violence of the
sovereign law of the State which despotically integrates or expels people and reduces the community
of equal citizens to nationals entitled to social benefits (Chemillier-Gendreau 2005, p. 168 sq).
“Liberal revolutionary” thought is thus buttressed on the founding principle of some ‘pure’ citizenship
which, if progressively confused with the principle of nationality, remains in its principle
“incompatible with any limit delineating an outside world weighed down with inequality” (Chemillier-
Gendreau 2005, p. 169)
The approach to the European question adopted by Balibar and other like-minded authors (Tassin
2007, Citton 2003) cannot be differentiated from a more general vision of the destabilisation of the
“social national State”, i.e. a State which could only remedy class inequalities by subordinating
citizenship to nationality (Balibar 2002, p. 36). By controlling territories the State was thus in a
position to act as a mediator between capital and work and impose political sovereignty. This meant
that economic processes were deeply territorialised – which they no longer are, at least not in the same
way. Hence the necessity to reconsider each of the component parts of the “citizenship = nationality =
sovereignty” equation (Balibar 2002, p. 46). However, it should be stressed that Balibar has never
envisaged the possible disappearance of the Nation-State or of national borders – which sets him apart
from other more radical leftist thinkers such as Toni Negri. Even though the very foundations of the
citizenship-nationality pattern are “shaken” today it would be “thoughtless” – in his own words – to
draw the conclusion that nations will eventually disappear. He does not believe in the end of the
concept of nationality, or in the progressive dissolution of the links between nationality and
citizenship. He rather contends that these concepts have become so blurred and confused that they

12
cannot remain so unchanged. In other terms the problem today is not to affirm that the citizenship-
nationality equation has become obsolete or that it should only be transferred at the supranational
level. The relation between the two notions should rather be addressed by “breaking such prestigious
obviousness” turning it into “a problem, not a given fact or a norm” (Balibar 2002, p. 67). The
distinction between nationals and foreigners should thus not be abolished but frontiers must become
more “democratic” according to the principle of reciprocity rather than discrimination. This new
conception of citizenship is neither anti-national nor supra-national but trans-national. It does not run
counter to the concept of State but implies the redefinition and reappraisal of the myth of the sovereign
Nation-State (Balibar 2002, p. 11). The progressive establishment of “a universal right to free
circulation and residence” does not imply abolishing frontiers but renegotiating the conditions for
crossing them, thus breaking away from unilateral political decisions attached to heightened security
ideologies and practices (Balibar 2001, p. 316).
That is the reason why Europe was originally regarded as a potential testing ground for a new form of
citizenship. In Balibar’s early works on this topic, Europe was considered the ideal locus where radical
democratic ambitions could take shape and frontiers become more relative. In his various analyses
published in the late 1990s and early 2000s this authors envisaged European construction as a vector
for the historical transformation of the notion of citizenship, in its content as in its form. He went even
further when he contended that Europe could only make sense if it originated an innovative trend in
the history of democracy, a “democratic invention”, in the sense of Lefort (Balibar 2002, p. 176).
Europe should not be conceived of as a “body” but as a “space” with democratised frontiers, founded
on the progressive emergence of a universal right to free circulation and residence. The paradoxical
prerequisite for real citizenship for all meant that frontiers – “the anti-democratic condition above all
else of democracies themselves” (Balibar 2002, p. 15) – should become more relative. Europe should
thus be more democratic than the nations that make it up, and it is significant that such an evolution
should be envisaged from a legal perspective, notably with growing power given to the judiciary
granting equal access to justice for all citizens (Raynaud 2006, p. 185).
In all evidence the relativised conception of frontiers implies that Europe should relinquish the old
myth of closure and exclusive identity (Balibar 2003, p. 56). Such desubstantialisation or de-
identification of Europe is only possible if Europe is a “Borderland” itself or more precisely a
juxtaposition of frontiers, cultures and histories of the world (Balibar 2003, p. 33). Against “the
substantialist obsession” (Ogilvie in Balibar 2003, p. 64) it is thus essential to refute the idea that
Europe is an historical, cultural or economic fact. The question of European identity is a false problem
in so far as it should only be about extending the concept of citizenship (Balibar 2001, p. 12). The
definition of “the European community of citizens” cannot be based on the principle of exclusive
identity. It can only be “open by principle” and define itself as a community of accession to citizenship
(Balibar 2001, p. 220).

13
This conception of European citizenship is close to the theories developed by authors such as Jean-
Marc Ferry (2000; 2005) or Marc Crépon (2006). These authors contend that the philosophical
meaning of Europe is related to a dynamic principle which is incompatible with any form of
withdrawal into national values, such as Greek metaphysics, Roman law, German Freiheit or
Christianity. Far from being limited to a specific historical heritage, Europe is defined by a dual
relational pattern – the relations between the different peoples of Europe and the relations of the
European peoples with the rest of the world (Crépon, 2006, p. 13). Though Balibar does not refer
explicitly to Kantian cosmopolitism he shares several of its postulates and admits that his own
intellectual approach “is not incompatible with the ‘cosmopolitanism’ reintroduced today by
Habermas and his disciples” (Balibar 2001, p. 311). However Balibar objects to the purely ethical
approach of these thinkers since conceiving of a substantial trans-national citizenship implies defining
objectives “in situation”. It would therefore be necessary to define some “democratic building sites” as
so many potential loci for the trans-national politicisation of the European Union – democratisation of
the legal system, integration through work, fight against discrimination against non-Member-State
nationals, etc. These “determined issues” could serve as focal points for trans-national European social
and political movements. In other words it means opening up “the circle of ideal-type Europe to
reality”.
It is from such an initially utopian perspective that criticism levelled at the development of the
European Union must be analysed. Since the mid-2000 a feeling of disenchantment has progressively
emerged towards a European construction deemed incapable of changing significantly the traditional
political categories. I have shown that the “conservative” school of thinkers regarded European
construction as the expression of the prevalence of individual rights destabilising the Nation-State. The
most recent publications of the “liberal revolutionary” theoreticians go in the opposite direction.
“Real” Europe has proved disappointing for the author of Nous, Citoyens d’Europe ? because it has
failed to guarantee human rights as “fundamental” rights and subvert the logic of the national State.
The European Union may originally have seemed to be in a position to significantly change the
traditional categories but under closer scrutiny nationalities remain at the very core of new citizenship.
The definition of “European citizenship” as stipulated in the Treaty of Maastricht and taken up
verbatim in the Constitutional Treaty is indeed essentially national. The citizenship = nationality
equation has merely shifted from the national to the supra-national level.
Balibar sees it as a sign of the emergence of a “new” and “dangerous” phenomenon which he calls
either European “racism” or “apartheid” (Balibar 2001, p. 83 sq.). In his view the introduction into
each national space of a discriminating differentiation between two categories of foreigners – “intra”
and “extra” Community nationals – furthers a new form of “otherness” at a time when the EU
proclaims its defence of universalism. The consequence is an increase in existing forms of
discrimination and exclusion since it is no longer a matter of “sociological differences” but a “true
institutional process”. The millions of “third countries” nationals are becoming an undefined mass of

14
“second class” citizens or “subjugated residents” at the service of fully-fledged Europeans (Balibar
2001, p. 85).
The use of the word “apartheid” is assumed and justified by the progressive formation of a new
inferior population – in its rights and dignity – increasingly submitted to violent forms of “security
controls” and forced to live permanently on the “borderline”, not totally within or without the frontiers
of Europe. Balibar contends that it evidences a form of “racism” that is specific to Europe against all
those who are not “white, secular, or Christian” (Balibar 2001, p. 85). Such a “denial” of the right of
residence for the populations which do not belong to the founding European nations was at the heart of
Balibar’s reservations on the Constitutional Treaty (Balibar, May 25th, 2005).
In addition to the problem of non-European residents within the EU there is also the question of
violence at the borders furthered by the implementation of the Schengen area. Far from conferring on
it a trans-national dimension, the establishment of a “Europe of police forces” has progressively given
the European space all the characteristics of a “territory” to be defended against a new enemy – both
within and without -, namely refugees and migrant workers. Thus are revealed the new aporias of this
“local cosmopolitism” leading Europe to conceive of itself as the guardian of international legal
principles whereas it is often unable to implement them on its own territory. As Europe is incapable of
exerting its civilising influence at home, Balibar contends that it has consequently given up any active
role in the establishment of a “global citizenship” since at its very frontiers, in Palestine, Chechnia, or
Algeria it no longer acts with a view to reducing “the anti-political combination of militarism and
humanitarian action, thus repeating the same mistake and showing the same powerlessness as in
former Yugoslavia” (Balibar 2005, p. 90). By so doing Europe denies the role of “mediation” or
“translation” that its own history and openness to the world should have made it play in the shaping of
a new universalist approach.

The contrasted visions of Europe found in France are in fine articulated to distinct ways of considering
the relation between law and politics. For the “conservatives”, Europe appears more as the illustration
of a long-term process of depoliticisation than as an original phenomenon. Far from being analysed as
a unique political object European construction is only the ultimate expression of the dissolution of
politics spurred on by the prevailing role given to individual rights. By contrast, the “liberal
revolutionary” thinkers acknowledge the potentially innovative dimension of European construction
but criticise its failure at implementing true human rights politics beyond the national paradigm.
If we leave these divergences aside, can one speak of a “French specificity” in the French theoretical
approach to the European project? In fact one should rather speak in terms of absence. Indeed there is
hardly any equivalent in French political thought of the model of “federal supra-nationalism”
advocated in Germany (Habermas 2000), in the Nordic countries or even in the United Kingdom

15
(Morgan 2005; Hix and Follesdal 2005). In the two main paradigms identified in the present article,
the concept of a European federal State is conspicuously absent or refuted, whether it is deemed
coherent from a purely logical perspective but unlikely for historical reasons - which seems to be
Pierre Manent’s final conclusion – or undesirable because it runs counter to the ultimate aim to abolish
frontiers.
The same remarks could be made about a third movement, the neo-Kantian school of thinkers. I have
chosen not to delve into this strand of thought as it does not occupy a central place in French public
debate. Drawing their inspiration largely from German sources, its main representatives live in
Belgium (Ferry 2000 and 2005) or Switzerland (Cheneval 2005). Let us just mention that these authors
focus their attention more on European law – conceived of as the medium for mutual recognition
among European peoples - than on individual rights. They regard law not as the sign of the dissolution
of politics but as the vector of a civilisation of confrontation between European states. Europe is also
envisaged as a regulating concept which might eventually lead to the first effective form of
cosmopolitanism based on mediation between nations. According to this approach, the cosmopolitan
paradigm does not downplay the role of the Nation-State as it is precisely through the nation that the
cosmopolitan dimension of law can be envisaged and realised (Cheneval 2005, p. 276). Such a
cosmopolitan process which takes into account the rights of peoples and does not call for the creation
of a global State ex-nihilo should be apprehended as a regulating or civilising principle (Cheneval
2005, p. 256). Cosmopolitanism would be some form of legal integration of free states, based on
regular and organised deliberation and not on their subordination to a higher authority. This means that
Habermas’ call for the emergence of a larger civil Nation inspired by the principles of 1789 may
ironically seem more “French” than the insistence by his French-speaking followers on the progressive
and ascending nature of the European process.
In other terms, even though they may hold significantly diverging opinions on the evolution and
functioning of the European Union, no French political thinker upholds the idea that the national
reference should be neither abolished nor surpassed, in the short or mid term. Theoretical debates in
France are rather marked by their refusal to envisage European construction as the mere
“transposition” (Rosanvallon 2003) of the mechanisms of national democracy to a supra-national
level. French political thinkers on Europe insistently see the Nation as the main locus for political
socialisation. The diverging issue is that some of them conceive of the European Union, based on the
laws of the market and the rule of law, as a powerful vector for the dissolution of national
communities, whereas others insist on the political potentialities of Europe to go beyond the Nation-
State framework.

16
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