Past, present and future of European idea through the eyes of the French left

Abstract

The article considers the position of forces on the left flank of the French party-political spectrum from the point of view of the attitude of the main parties and movements towards the prospects of European integration. The author focuses on the French Socialist Party (FSP), in respect to which internal contradictions between Eurooptimists and Eurosceptics have become a reflection of the fundamental doctrinal conflict. Emerged at the creation of the party at the beginning of the 20th century, it found his intermediate solution in the form of a model of the development of French socialism, proposed by F. Mitterrand in the 1970s. However, its exhaustion by the mid-2000s intensified the conflict, a significant manifestation of which was the split of the party over the attitude towards the EU Constitution in 2005. The defeat of the party during the elections of 2017 and the outlined prospect of its further degradation are largely related to this circumstance. The position of the forces “to the left of the left”, traditionally maintaining Eurosceptic stances, is considered separately. Historically, the Trotskyists are active here, whose attitude towards modern European integration, however, is ambiguous. Considering it at large as a globalistic project, they, in the main, are not inclined to demand the immediate withdrawal of France from the EU. The main role among the forces “to the left of the left” is currently played by the movement J.-L. Mélenchon, which by 2017 had largely pushed the FSP on the left flank as a whole. While it has benefited from the growth of mass Eurosceptic sentiments in the country, the problem remains of putting forward a constructive program aimed at real reform of the EU.