Politicizing Europe in Hard Times: Conflicts over Europe in France in a Long-term Perspective, 1974–2012

Abstract

This article examines whether and how the Euro crisis has affected the long-term trends of politicization of Europe in France. Has the crisis fueled the extent of politicization? Do we observe shifts in specific aspects of Europe being politicized? Are the patterns of opposition changing? To answer these questions, the authors compare the electoral campaign in 2012 with all French campaigns since 1974. Additionally, France is put in a broader comparative perspective. Politicization is conceptualized as three interrelated dimensions: issue salience, actor expansion, and polarization. Methodologically, the article is based on a relational content analysis of newspaper articles. The findings show that the Euro crisis boosted the level of politicization, and economic policies, as well as justification frames became more important. However, the degree of polarization was higher in election campaigns that focused more on constitutional conflicts over membership and were dominated by concerns with national identity and sovereignty.

Keywords:

• Politicization
• France
• Euro crisis
• presidential election

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research conducted in a larger project on ‘The Politicization of Europe’. The project was financed by the German Research Council (DFG) from 2010 to 2014. We thank Simon Bornschier, Isabelle Guinaudeau, Edgar Grande, and Hanspeter Kriesi for their valuable comments.

Notes

1. Although France is a creditor country and did not have to adopt austerity programs, its economic conditions were judged to be worrisome by many commentators at the time of the election (e.g. The Economist 31 March 2012).

2. For a more detailed discussion of the methods and data, we refer the reader to the methodological chapters of the two volumes and an online appendix for this article published on http://www.mwpweb.eu/SwenHutter/publications.html.

3. The trends for our salience measure mirror those based on party manifestos (e.g. Guinaudeau and Persico 2013, 153). However, the differences between the three dimensions of politicization highlight that we should not just focus on salience.

4. The issue category Euro (general) covers general statements about the Euro and ‘solving the Euro crisis’ (10.0% of all coded statements); National efforts covers statements about more efforts by the ‘debtor’ countries or calls for certain countries to leave the Eurozone (10.6%); ESM/ESFS covers the two main measures adopted at the time of the election campaign (15.0%); Growth + covers all statements for or against more support from Europe to the countries hit by the crisis or for more protectionist measures (e.g. Hollande’s call for more growth-oriented measures) (27.2%); Deepening (general) covers statements for/against more fundamental reforms of EU institutions, and statements related to national sovereignty or the withdrawal from the EU (22.4%).