Luxembourg: Most joked about, also smallest and richest
EU-15 is Eurocratese for the fifteen Western European countries that were part of the European Union prior to the 2004 enlargement to the east.
A dense assemblage of diverse cultures, ethnicities, and languages, these are the nations that laid the foundations—roads, maps, religions, language, and sociopolitical ideas and governmental frameworks—for what Europe is today. These are the countries that kept alive the concept of an organized landmass for millennia, as the Roman Empire, Holy Roman Empire, Napoleonic Empire, Third Reich, or European Union.
Of all the EU-15 countries, only three don’t use the euro: Britain, Denmark, and Sweden.
And outside of occasional alliances, for most of history these nations have been sniping, taunting, clobbering, and slaughtering each other—doing it so well, in fact, that it took years and sometimes decades to put everything together again after military run-ins that sometimes lasted over a century. The Second World War took it to a new extreme: were the EU-15 to go through a more advanced version of that again, they might as well commit collective suicide.
These are now the richest, most developed countries of Europe—and they are among the most affluent in the world—for three reasons. They had a multibillion dollar loan from the United States in the form of the Marshall Plan to rebuild themselves after World War II, and they had sixty years to heal from the devastation—both physical and emotional—of that war. And in the course of re-creating themselves they devised a novel method to lessen the likelihood of so thoroughly destroying themselves again. Sharing resources, dividing power, creating an expanding trade market, and redistributing income, they cobbled together what would evolve into the EU.
Another factor that kept cohesion: shared military. While NATO served the purpose of militarily uniting most of these countries since the Second World War, new European military alliances are being created. The EU has its own forces, but some members are aligning separately.
Even with most of Old Europe joined as a loose union that abides by the same trade rules and laws and (mostly) shares the same currency, these countries still occasionally bicker and snarl at each other, and there is plenty of discontent within the union. With growing skepticism within most EU member countries, who knows? The EU could unravel if certain countries decide to back out. Without EU membership, however, countries risk being a lone weak voice against a united whole.
In 2004, with most of Western Europe linked together as part of the EU, the EU opened the door to the East for a number of reasons. But while it welcomes the new states, the EU hasn’t yet welcomed its workers. Citizens of the ten new EU countries cannot legally work in most EU-15 countries until 2012.
WHY WESTERN EUROPE OPENED THE DOOR TO THE EAST
Create a political-socioeconomic power that can rival the U.S.
Take advantage of cheap labor
Increase available resources
Expand market and foreign-investment opportunities
Stabilize Europe and keep it from warring
Minimize risk of Russia again moving west
Expand strategic influence
Guilt
The hesitation among EU-15 countries to allow the new EU countries’ workers to enter hints at the most looming problem for all of Western Europe at the moment: immigration. While new workers are indeed needed, increasingly powerful groups have risen in many countries, questioning the social impact of foreigners living in their lands. And while many countries are now shutting the door, they will not be able to do so forever.
In the meantime, Old Europe finds itself at the most interesting, complicated, and intense moment of its history: never before has there been such a massive, voluntary union of this sort across Europe. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld used the term “Old Europe” to signify a rusty, decaying Europe, but the poor man was misguided. For all the stresses involved in stitching together most of Europe in an “ever-closer union,” the end result is a reinvigoration of both old and new.
1. FRANCE
(La République Française)
The Trendsetter
FAST FACTS
Country: French Republic; La République Française
Capital: Paris
Government: Republic
Independence: 486 (unified by Clovis)
Population: 60,657,000 (July 2005 estimate)
Head of State: President Jacques Chirac (1995)
Head of Government: Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin (2005)
Elections: President elected by universal suffrage for five-year term; prime minister nominated by House of Representatives
Name of Parliament: Assemblée Nationale
Ethnicity: Exact percentages not known: government not allowed to ask ethnicity
Religion: 83% Roman Catholic; 10% Muslim; 2% Protestant; 1% Jewish (estimated)
Language: French (but of course)
Literacy: 99% (estimated)
Famous Exports: Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, L’Oréal
Economic Big Boy: Total (oil and gas); 2004 total sales: $131.64 billion1
Per Capita GDP: $29,900 purchasing power parity (2005 estimate)
Unemployment: 9.2% (January 2006 Eurostat figure)
Percentage in Poverty: 6.5% (2000 estimate)
EU Status: Founding member (EEC member since 1957)
Currency: Euro
Quick Tour
Synonymous with silky wines, glossy chocolates, and thick, buttery accents, France is all wrapped up with food. Whether it’s cheese bursting out of the rind, a chewy baguette spread with pâté, or duck-rich cassoulet, the art-on-the-plate that’s made to consume is as integral to La République Française as fashion and perfume.
THE FRENCH PARADOX
Is it the flaky croissant, the stone houses amid lavender fields, the location nudged against an ocean, two seas, or the Alps that draws 75 million foreigners to France every year? Is it the history of the cliff-perched castles, glittering Versailles, the marble-tabled cafés where creators once tipped back absinthe, or the lure of haute cuisine and haute couture and the perfume houses that beckon with scents pressed from flowers? Is it the romance that bubbles from the ground, the stylish culture that surrounds or the happy sounds of the lilting bonjour and merci? The symbols of France are well stamped in the mind, but who really knows what France really is, except an ephemeral, sometimes playful, sometimes grumpy geographical state of mind that is perhaps best defined with a smug shrug? From the palm tree–lined Riviera to snow-dusted Mont Blanc, France is a contradiction, a moody artist of a nation that creates vibrant masterpieces, then dwells in dark conspiracy theories; a popular bon vivant who rarely appears to have fun; a thinker who triggers ideological revolutions but never fathoms contentment; a country that swells with nationalistic pride but whose people identify most with their regions, plenty of which want to secede. The country that penned Europe’s first declaration of human rights was one of the world’s most brutal colonizers; the nation that loudly demands responsible international action is tainted by shady backroom deals; the people who dish out criticism of everyone else are secretly sensitive and easily wounded. Even while complaining that their country is declining, the French so adore France and her lifestyle that they rebel every time any privilege is whittled away, even if it’s for the nation’s own good. But like a distant lover whose mannerisms and smells are alluring, but whose true thoughts are rarely revealed, the appeal of France is her moody mystique and inimitable style, which, along with the omnipresent culture and history that seep in from every corner, keep the romance with France alive, and the tourists coming back for yet another fling.
One thing you can count on in France: the chitchat soon turns to cuisine. Little wonder the French are obsessed: fishing villages strung along rocky shores, oyster beds along an inland sea, blossoming fruit orchards, silvery olive groves, lush vineyards, and swaying fields of grain assure mouthwatering variety in France’s open-air mark
ets and megagrocery stores. More edibles push up and plump out in France than in any other country outside the U.S. With over half of French land devoted to farming, agriculture yields over $31 billion per year, and nearly a quarter of European Union food originates here. And French fare—whether savored in swanky restaurants or in black-and-white tiled bistros, whether the glazed confections in patisseries or the dusted loaves in boulangeries, or whether found in these tiny stores that reek of pungent cheese—is but one reason why France is the world’s number one tourist magnet.
Fromage fiends: The average French person consumes over fifty pounds of cheese annually.
FRENCH STANDOUTS
Biggest food producer in Europe, second in the world (behind U.S.)
World’s top travel destination (75 million visitors a year)
Largest European Union country by area on the Continent
Most EU agricultural subsidies ($10 billion+ annually)2
Launched EU (inadvertently) with Germany
Most nuclear power in Europe (56 plants)
One of the two EU countries with nuclear arms (other is Britain)
Second-biggest European economy (after Germany)
Largest Muslim population in Europe (about 5 million)
Stood up most brashly to U.S. over Iraq
Language most suited to love (makes “ticket, please” sound sexy)
The geographical giant of Western Europe, with towering leaders to match, France is the mightiest European country alongside former foe Germany, the other head chef in Europe’s kitchen, with whom France inadvertently hatched the EU when Europe rose again from the ashes of World War II. (See “History Review,” page 17). For much of the past three centuries, France dominated culture across the Continent, cooking up the latest and greatest in fashion, thought, art, and political trends. Eighteenth-century French peasants launched the revolution that whipped up a continental frenzy, and French patriots wrote the world’s first declaration of universal human rights, beating out even the Americans. French thinkers served up Enlightenment ideals to the masses, including encyclopedias and essays that flavor our outlook even today. Napoleon apportioned more European land than Hitler, and the laws he penned are still used from Paris to Peru. French artists and writers—and foreigners drawn like moths to the City of Light—stirred the creative world with waves of movements, from impressionism to cubism, symbolism to existentialism. French poets (Rimbaud and Verlaine among them) were the world’s most drunken and bawdy. The French have been fashion plates since the days of the three Louis, and French chefs have been melting our hearts for at least two hundred years. Long a creative hotbed of intellectuals, providing endless food for thought, France was so edgy and arty that she led the avant-garde even before the term had been cooked up. For centuries upon centuries, so important was France and so crucial was knowledge of Français, the language of les beaux arts and international diplomacy (and the language that peppered intellectual writings), that for ages powerful Americans and Brits actually bothered to learn it.
English is shoving French aside as the EU’s lingua franca—and the French are appalled. Jacques Chirac stormed out of a 2006 EU meeting when an influential French business leader shockingly addressed the attendees in the language of business, i.e., Anglais.
NOTABLE MOMENTS IN FRANCO-AMERICAN RELATIONS
The Franco-American relationship was founded on friendship, but it’s been rocky lately. A few highlights:
1770s: France gives and loans so much money to American revolutionaries fighting British rule that she nearly goes broke, a factor leading to the French Revolution.
1860s: France’s vineyards devastated by grape blight phylloxera; U.S. ships over disease-resistant grape stalks that save the wine industry.
1884: France sends Statue of Liberty to New York, a symbol of their mutual love of liberté, égalité, et fraternité.
1917: France hammered in First World War; U.S. enters the war and evens the score.
1941: U.S. and British leaders loathe French resistance leader Charles de Gaulle; U.S. refuses to recognize him as legit.
1944: Allied forces liberate France from Nazi occupation; de Gaulle leads liberation parade through Paris; Roosevelt and Churchill don’t invite de Gaulle to Yalta Conference where Germany’s fate is decided and acquired lands are divided.
1947: U.S. offers Marshall Plan funding to rebuild after Second World War.
1956: France (with Britain and Israel) invades Egypt during Suez Crisis; U.S. forces them to retreat.
1966: President Charles de Gaulle gives NATO marching orders out of France.
1984: French and U.S. scientists battle over who isolated the AIDS virus first.
1986: President François Mitterrand refuses use of French air bases for refueling when U.S. fighters fly over to attack Libya; U.S. aircraft “accidentally” drops a bomb over France.
1991: France fights alongside U.S. against Iraq in Persian Gulf War.
2003: President Jacques Chirac opposes war in Iraq, threatens veto on any UN Security Council resolution approving an invasion; U.S. promises economic reprisals and tries to delete “French” from vocabulary and wine cellars.
2004: Bush bashes France during presidential campaign: “The use of troops to defend America must never be subject to a veto by countries like France.” Chirac calls to congratulate Bush on victory, suggests France and U.S. strengthen ties.
2005: Secretary of State Condi Rice wows in Paris, speaks of new chapter in “Franco-American relations.”
2006: U.S. and France agree to take matter of Iran’s uranium enrichment program to the UN Security Council. President Jacques Chirac and President George Bush meet in Russia for G-8 meeting and smile for the cameras, pretending that everything is très fantastique.
Despite the recent feuding, France and the U.S. are economically married. Each business day “over $1 billion in commercial transactions take place” between France and the U.S.3
But something has changed. Once the idea muscle of Europe, France has grown flabby and is now painfully examining her lumpy form in the mirror. Creativity is stymied, the government sector is bloated—providing a quarter of French jobs—and the formerly state-dominated economy is bilious, with unemployment hovering near an unappetizing 10 percent. French chefs are losing their hats to Spaniards and Belgians, tourism recently shrank by 2 million visitors a year, wine sales are sagging, and in a recent show of cross-Atlantic passive aggressiveness, the U.S. (still steamed about Iraq) banned imports of French foie gras, mumbling something about facilities being unclean. The corruption, once as acceptable as Burgundy with lunch, is no longer palatable, and courts keep throwing the book at unsavory politicians and corporate heads for cooking theirs. The government’s attempts at economic belt-tightening measures don’t suit French tastes: workers have a simmering dislike of anything that may threaten their thirty-five-hour workweek and paid five-week vacations.
THE FRENCH MODEL
French society re-created itself after World War II, this time guaranteeing every citizen the rights to the sweet life. The “French model” embraced a number of practices and ideals, including:
Free high-quality education, including advanced university degrees
Free/low-cost health care (80 percent to 100 percent reimbursed) with free (reimbursed) pharmaceutical drugs
Universal medical coverage even to the poorest
Labor laws that protect workers and discourage dismissal except for economic necessities and misbehavior
Outstanding railway linking the country at affordable prices
Industry and utilities that were largely state-owned until recently
Heavy government regulation and high taxes (near 50 percent)
Some say the French model is no longer sustainable—stalling business growth, making France uncompetitive, and creating a top-heavy bureaucracy while sidelining minorities who complain it does not fully extend to them. But whenever the French see their rights being chipped away, they
flip out.
Although nowhere near as common as in the United States, crime and violence are rising—murder rates alone jumped 26 percent in 20014—and politicians, including President Jacques Chirac (target of a neo-Nazi gunman) and Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë (stabbed in 2002) are dodging knives and ducking bullets, sometimes unsuccessfully—as in Nanterre, where an activist sprayed bullets across a city council meeting, killing eight. Frequent anti-Semitic acts are a growing source of international concern—and the 2006 kidnapping of twenty-three-year-old Jew Ilan Halimi, who was burned and tortured (allegedly by the young “Gang of Barbarians”) when his family couldn’t turn over $500,000 in ransom—horrified the world. And lately, roving gangs of second-generation North African and other immigrant youths—who roam cities vandalizing, pickpocketing, painting swastikas on Jewish graves, torching cars, and gang-raping for fun—symbolize encroaching danger and an unhappy second-generation immigrant population impossible to ignore.
In November 2005, thousands of young French restless youth and ghetto gangs ravaged the country Furious over the deaths of two French African youth who were electrocuted while climbing the fences of a power station—rioters said they had been chased there by police—their anger boiled over in fiery mayhem. During three weeks of rioting, they torched 9,000 cars, attacked the weak and elderly (killing at least one old man, and setting one woman on fire), and wrecked $230 million of property The government declared a state of emergency and enforced curfews in banlieues, and three thousand were arrested. Even after the massive fires went out, the problem didn’t stop smoldering.
What Every American Should Know About Europe Page 2