*** NICOLE FONTAINE, FRANCOIS POULET-MATHIS: Brexit: une chance? Repenser l’Europe. Auteurs du Monde (54 rue des Mèches, F-94000 Créteil. Tel: (33-9) 50525305 – Email: auteursdumonde@free.fr – Internet: http://www.auteursdumonde.fr ). 2016, 252 pp, €17. ISBN 979-10-91301-44-2.
The edition of this two-voices-and-a-chorus book ended before the results were known of the decision whereby a slight majority of the British electorate opted for leaving the European Union, but it remains worthy of interest nonetheless. Firstly, because the authors consider how the Europeans will deal with a potential Brexit and also with a victory of supporters of the UK remaining in the European Union. The results of the snap election convened by Theresa May send us back almost to the days and weeks that preceded the 23 June 2016 referendum, when both possibilities were on the cards... Next, it is useful to read what an actress and a long-time observer of the European project have to say about the Union, whether with twenty-eight or twenty-seven members. In interconnected interviews with Nicole Fontaine, president of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2002, and journalist Francois Poulet-Mathis, veteran European correspondent for France 3, which form the framework of this book, marrying experience, eye-witness reports and independence of spirit gained from standing back from the political body under observation. This is all served up with a freedom of speech that gives the ideas credibility. Finally, the book’s utility also lies in the fact that a ‘chorus’ of students are involved from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Paris, ‘the oldest school of trade in the world,’ explains Prof. Frank Bournois in the preface, which has now become a pan-European school across a number of campuses. These voices of young Europeans give a breath of fresh air, although not all their ideas are to be taken at face-value, for example, the idea of bringing together the citizens of Europe by creating a… European Parliament of members of national parliaments!
‘How did we get here?’ To this question, the title of the first part of the book, two levels of answers are given. Firstly, the authors explore ‘the reasons for the slow descent into hell.’ A lot depends on bad processes in Brussels, but Nicole Fontaine admits that there is some truth in putting ‘technocracy’ on trial since ‘in their Berlaymont stronghold, high-ranking European officials’ are more stable than the Commissioners’; and ‘as they have a grand idea of their competence (…)to get them to budge, is sometimes like trying to shift a limpet stuck to its rock!’ She is just as tough on Commissioner Bolkestein, guilty of ‘working to impose with a quite irresponsible sense of political provocation (…) a measure leading to social dumping.’ The words of the former president of the European Parliament are free and sometimes cutting, which confers very clear credibility to the authors’ pedagogical concerns. Hence they show how Europe has effectively been a ‘very handy scapegoat,’ why the democratic deficit remains despite the rising power of the European Parliament, how an ‘excessively liberal slippage’ desired by the United Kingdom has ‘taken its toll,’ the summum of the ‘ultraliberal slippage’ being the Barroso presidency that saw the European Commission becoming, as the French woman scathingly points out, ‘a kind of boat lost at sea, drifting a pilot.’ This enables her in passing to criticise the choice of individuals made by the European Council: Donald Tusk is above all an ‘odd job man’ for heads of state whose main concern, she says, has long been to ‘seek out above all figures who will not overshadow them, and they succeeded in this to an extent beyond even their own expectations’... On the question of sharing the refugee burden, Jean-Claude Juncker tried hard to get his views heard, but found himself facing ‘a learned assembly of flaccid heads of state deaf to any calls to reason in favour of strong solidarity in action.’
Analysis of the same ilk, frank and lucid, without any complacency, is found in the other parts of the book. After a detour via snags in prosperity and some broken promises about a space of liberty and equality, the challenges currently facing the Union are reviewed, be they its ‘impotence in the face of crises,’, the geographical limits to be placed on the European project, or the need to preserve in the current club the fundamental values that underlay the original project. ‘What now?’ Nicole Fontaine and François Poulet-Mathis finally ask. Is London’s departure the prelude to ‘deconstruction’ or ‘clarification’? Their answer clearly leans toward the second option, as they explain that that continuing with 28 members was no longer tenable given the persistent attitude of the British authorities. Michel Theys
*** Futuribles. L’anticipation au service de l’action. Futuribles Sarl (47 rue de Babylone, F-75007 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53633770 – Fax: 42226554 – Email: revue@futuribles.com – Internet: http://www.futuribles.co m). March-April 2017, No. 417, 128 pp, €22. Annual subscription: €115. ISBN 978-2-84387-430-7.
How was it possible for the United States end up in the hands of a ‘demagogue’ like Donald Trump? Was his election a specifically American problem, ‘or an early sign of a deeper crisis common to Western democracies’? To these questions raised by Hugues de Jouvenel in the editorial, this issue of this French future prospects review provides answers in two phases. The review starts with interviews seeking to understand the long-term visions that inspire French politicians, the first to speak on this subject being former minister Jean-Paul Delevoye and economist Jean Haëntjens. Then there are two articles on Brexit. Jean-François Drevet devotes his usual European column to the subject by highlighting the risks of isolation that are facing the United Kingdom, since the members of the Commonwealth did not rejoice at the decisions and are concerned above all about damage-limitation. The former official at the European Commission also talks about the risk run by London of greater subjection to the whims of the United States in the economic and business domain. The other areas examined by former international civil servant Derek Martin, who has double Dutch and British nationality. He puts forward arguments casting doubt on the inevitability of Brexit. A doubt that is growing in the light of the recent general election results in Great Britain... (MT)
*** GEORGE PREVELAKIS: Qui sommes-nous? La géopolitique de l'identité grecque. Editions Economia Publishing (6-8 rue Vlachava, GR-10551 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3314714 – Fax: 3252283 – Email: bookstore@economia.gr Internet: http://www.economia. gr). 2016, 224 pp, €23. ISBN 978-960-9490-37-5.
This book is necessarily associated with the question, ‘Who are we?’ and to answer it, George Prévélakis, professor of geography at Sorbonne University (Paris I) and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Sciences Po, does not stop at the salient facts of the history of Greece, but also looks at the direction Greece should be heading towards. During the great tensions of the summer of 2015 of which Greece was the focal point, this great specialist in geopolitics, town planning and cultural geography explains that it was most certainly not economic considerations that prevailed, but geopolitical considerations, and this is why, in his opinion, it was possible to overcome the danger of Grexit. This reflection on the dimension of confrontation between Greeks and others is developed by George Prevelakis through the eyes of a man based on experience and the analytical logic of the geographer and geopolitical researcher, in order to put an end to all the balderdash that has been said about Greece abroad. The book guides the reader through myths about the Greeks that have collapsed. It sheds light on the contradictions and reconstructions scattered though time. It provides material that will no doubt make it possible to move beyond phobic temptations, but which also demands that simplism be put to one side. (AKa)
*** TRISTAN GARCIA: Nous. Editions Grasset & Fasquelle (61 rue des Saints-Pères, F-75006 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 44392200 – Email: webmaster@grasset.fr – Internet: http://www.grasset.fr ). ‘Figures’ series. 2016, 308 pp, €20. ISBN 978-2-246-85840-9.
‘We.’ A two-letter word that contains so many possibilities. Lecturer in philosophy at Lyon III University in France, Tristan Garcia invites readers in this book to a point, ‘I,’ surrounded by a multitude of circumferences stretching out to the infinite, which represent the multiple images of ‘we.’ ‘Whoever says ‘we’ is not simply talking about himself and his family and friends,’ observes the author. One could limit oneself to dividing the world into men and women, or caucasian, monoloid and negro races (like in the nineteenth century). In reality, one would then have to divide the world into virile men, effeminate men and transsexuals, rich and poor, believers and non-believers, etc. The contours thus described can themselves vary infinitely, for example in the light of skin colour. Another possible division is nationality, of course. Tristan Garcia takes the example of the various maps of Africa, with the borders traced before and after colonialisation, which led to divisions among different ethnicities, ‘Niger and Nigeria, for example, cut in two the hauoussa ethnic area,’ he observes. Many recent armed conflicts come from border overlaps and from populations who, like the Tuareg, live in a number of counties without a state of their own. The author also takes the division between race and social class. There are social codes that want some to say: ‘veganism is a thing of the rich’ or ‘why put animal rights ahead of the rights of human beings?‘ Clearly, as is stated on the back cover, this book is an innovative, living model of who we are, ‘a dynamic identity that constantly ebbs and flows according to a certain logic’ decrypted by the author. It leads readers to put into perspective and understand some of the identities some hang on to, including in Europe. (ABu)
*** PAVLOS SOURLAS: La démocratie et l'autonomie. Editions Polis (33 Eolou Str., GR-10551 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3643382 – Fax: 3636501 – Email: info@polis-ed.gr – Internet: http://www.polis-ed.gr ). 2017, 440 pp, €20. ISBN 978-960-435-543-3.
Few of us doubt that democracy is the best of existing ergimes. But paradoxically, there are serious divergences among us when it comes to justifying our views. Disagreements are also legion when one considers the question of the best variant of democracy to favour. What is this divergence in views due to? How can we find an index to help us as far as possible to find our bearings in the daedalus of contractor views? Professor of philosophy of law at the law faculty of Athens University since 1990 and president of the Executive Committee of the Greek Parliament’s Foundation for Parliamentarianism and Democracy, Pavlos Sourlas covers these questions in the studies of political philosophy brought together in this volume. Directly or indirectly, he presents in a critical manner work in this domain by the main theoreticians of the past and present, starting from the principle that democracy is a complex beast incorporating a plurality of moral and political authorities. This is, of course, not without controversies and questions: freedom and equality, respect for formalities and waiting for good decisions, projection for individual rights, synthetic formulation of the common good, confidential voting and citizens’ dialogue, participation and representation together go to make up democracy. The anther disagrees with those that state that the relationship between these principles has to be hierarchic, which implies that one needs to determine the component that dominates and the order of those that follow. He thinks that each of these principles must be interpreted taking account of all the others using a method that minimises the tension between them. (AKa)
*** THANOS LIPOCITCH: La politique et la morale. Quel rapport ont-ils? Editions Sideris (116 rue Solonos, Gr-10681 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3833434 – Fax: 3832294 – Email: contact@isideris.gr). 2017, 136 pp, €9.50. ISBN 978-960-08-0737-0
The current crisis in Europe and Greece has an aspect that is both economic and cultural. It is unfurling into a crisis of confidence in modern, humanist and liberal values, opposing nihilistically individual and collective identities. Professor of political psychology at the Pantheon University in Athens and editorialist for a number of newspapers based in the Greek capital, Thanos Lipocitch explains in these pages the concept of a Republic compromised by both the nationalist populism of the fascist right and the nationalist populism of the left, and even the anarchic left. Thus, slowly, he says a fatalist and nihilistic attitude is emerging to lead the Republic. He says that faith in democratic constitutions is being lost and individuals, groups and institutions are falling back on outdated ideologies and passions. Clearly, the ghosts of the past, inexcusable violence, irrationalism, and negation of the truth in politics come galloping in via the levelling down of cultural values. Racist nationalism and the anarchist current will lead, says the author, to renunciation of the law and a political messianism mixed with Islamophobia and a phobia of Jews, which all flows into apocalyptic violence and diabolisation of the ‘other.’ As Thanos Lipovitch sees it, there is nothing inevitable about this, but the solution will require considerable effort and determination, courage and the taking of risks, not to mention a sense of responsibility in order to return to the truth and turn one’s back on conspiracy theories. Psychoanalysis can help chase away, individually and collectively, the ghosts of the past and reconnect with the positive achievements of the past in order to overcome the anxieties of the moment. This is why, he says, the possibility of uniting Politics and Morality is still alive... (AKa)