Marine Le Pen’s election campaign can be summarized in the slogan: No to Europe, yes to France.
The National Front candidate has even self-proclaimed as a “patriot,” accusing her opponent of being the representative of “the international.”
In fact, it’s the very idea of the European single market that is being challenged through these speeches opposing the free movement of workers and capital.
Let’s remember that it’s Jacques Delors, far from being the most fervent advocate of rampant capitalism, who gave the push for this single market through the Single European Act, simply observing that establishing a true internal market would benefit all European nations.
Moreover, he wasn’t wrong because the single market has helped create nearly 3 million jobs and increased the EU’s GDP by more than 2 percentage points between 1992 and 2008.
The creation of a single market is more of an ongoing process than a completed stage at any one time. The directive on posted workers, another topic widely discussed, contributes to this.
This text is certainly imperfect because it doesn’t come with harmonized social contributions. However, MLP’s vehement opposition to it reveals a broader mistrust of anything coming from Brussels, especially regarding the economy.
It’s worth noting that it’s thanks to the EU that:
French exports to the EU amount to €271 billion
Many French citizens – 650,000, according to the register of French nationals living abroad, which only reflects part of the reality – live in another EU member state, enjoying the right to work and social rights on par with local nationals
French consumers can purchase goods from across Europe without paying customs duties, assured that they meet the regulations applied in France.
French companies have invested massively in Central and Eastern Europe after the 2004 enlargement, revitalizing their activities and contributing to the development of the French economy. And this is all thanks to the single market (Maastricht Treaty in 1992).
The list of benefits from integration is much longer; it also includes the euro, Erasmus, European research programs, and the guarantee of living on a peaceful continent.
But if there is a distinctive French trait, it’s wanting to have one’s cake and eat it too. All the European provisions denounced by candidates today form a whole that, overall, greatly benefits the French.
Marine Le Pen simply advocates for leaving the EU, or alternatively, wants to impose her vision of the Old Continent on the other 26 European partners.
Should we fear a “Frexit,” a French exit from the EU? This possibility certainly cannot be excluded.
But the French are a nation capable of weighing their decisions. And understanding that abstract frameworks, futuristic poetry, and surrealist prose don’t fit well with the reality and its logic.
After all, don’t people say the French are Cartesian?
