If elected officials and specialists highlight the role of schools and the media, the responsibility is also political.
Do you know the name and position of Ursula von der Leyen? If the answer is yes, you are part of a minority. In the European barometer published by the ViaVoice* institute in December 2021, only 23% of French people surveyed said they knew the name and role of the President of the European Commission. Twenty-two percent said they had heard of her, and 48% knew nothing about her.
In terms of information on European issues, the trend does not seem to be towards improvement. In the Eurobarometer survey unveiled on December 6, 2023 by the European Union (EU), 47% of French people surveyed said they did not know when the European elections, organized in France on June 9, 2024, would take place. It is 17 points higher than the European average. VSHow can we explain such a lack of awareness of the EU in France?
Insufficient education about the European Union
Green MEP Karima Delli has her own idea. For her, the concern lies in the absence of mention of European issues outside of electoral deadlines. “Starting to talk about Europe at the time of the European elections is already too late”, deplores the elected official. For Valérie Hayer, Renew MEP and head of the presidential majority list in the June election, this lack of understanding of European institutions raises “a European civic and political question.
“Yes, the European system is complex and we must do everything so that the French understand it.”
Valérie Hayer, MEP and head of the presidential majority listat franceinfo
The specialists and European deputies interviewed by franceinfo agree that the French school system has its share of responsibility. “The European Union is taught much less in France” than in other EU countries, explains political scientist Virginie Van Ingelgom, professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). The theme is nevertheless present in the program for students from third to through a geography course entitled “France and the European Union”and a chapter of history named “Affirmation and implementation of the European project”. “But this is not followed in the curriculum and falls into oblivion”denounces the outgoing socialist MEP Sylvie Guillaume.
In March 2022, the Committee on Culture and Education of the European Parliament had also presented a report on the deployment of measures in favor of civic education. She goes there said “concerned about the limited attention given to European and global aspects of citizenship in national school curricula”.
Political scientist Virginie Van Ingelgom also deplores the tendency of the French school system to favor a reading of the functioning of the EU through national and non-European interests. “Europe is taught using national terms, we learn the European Union through the prism of France”, she explains.
A presentation that is all the more problematic as “L‘European Union may seem atypical for some French citizens’ because of its political functioning, observes the historian of European construction Sylvain Kahn. “There is a specificity in French culture with a semi-presidential regime” where the head of state holds strong power under the Fifth Republic, he explains. Conversely, within the EU, power is shared more between the different institutions that make it up, notably the European Parliament.
Media treatment of the EU singled out
In addition to education, the media also have some responsibility for this lack of awareness. According to a study by the Jean-Jaurès Foundation* published in June 2023, only 2.6% of television news and radio topics in the panel studied were devoted to European issues between 2020 and 2022.
The observation is unequivocal for Sylvain Kahn: the French media are suffering from a “lack of curiosity” for European subjects. En 2020, thestudy* carried out by ViaVoice for the European Movement association already established that 55% of French people considered themselves poorly informed concerning the EU. However, nearly 72% said they wanted to be more informed on this subject.
“We must not neglect the importance of the media, which relay and popularize European issues”, judges MEP Sylvie Guillaume on this subject. For the leader of Renaissance, Valérie Hayer, “the European dimension of current affairs is very rich, but still too relegated to the international pages of the media”. Sylvain Kahn, for his part, believes that European news is treated too much through the prism of controversy. “Even the so-called ‘serious’ written press favors a type of information where there is drama”, deplores the historian.
“Journalism is a pillar of our democracies and nourishes civic and political debate. The media bear a very important responsibility in view of the 2024 election.”
Sylvie Guillaume, socialist MEPat franceinfo
However, political scientist Virginie Van Ingelgom qualifies this explanation. According to her, the insufficient media coverage of European issues would also be the consequence of poor communication on the part of political parties on these same issues. “The responsibility of the media exists, but it is also the fault of political actors: it’s a vicious circle,” she notes.
Political actors, not at the EU meeting?
“The European elections are seen as second-rate elections” both by citizens and by the politicians themselves, says the political scientist. French parties also tend to “mix the deadlines and make the European elections of 2024 the presidential elections of 2027”denounces Sylvie Guillaume.
French officials are also inclined to “making the European Union invisible when its measures are applied at national and local level, even when it finances the policies in question”, argues political scientist Virginie Van Ingelgom. Although often perceived as complex and distant from the territories, the European Union in fact distributes subsidies which are used to bring many projects to fruition, such as line C of the Toulouse metro, which it financed to the tune of 220 million euros.
Sylvie Guillaume also points out a “little game of the government, which often evades its difficulties by blaming European dysfunctions, as much as it appropriates the victories of the European Union for its own personal account”. “When things don’t go well, it’s because of the European Union, but when things go well, it’s thanks to the national level”summarizes Virginie Van Ingelgom.
European subjects, factors of mobilization
Despite little knowledge of how the EU works, the French do not lose interest in European issues. The recent anger of farmers, which particularly targeted the common agricultural policy, is the latest example. “The farmers who demonstrated at the foot of the European Parliament, it was also a sign that this profession, very linked to European policy on the subject, knows who acts on what”, notes Valérie Hayer.
Green MEP Karima Delli do not think “that Europeans are as disinterested in the European Union as one might think, but that they are not sufficiently heard.” The elected representative particularly cites as proof the mobilization around the reauthorization of glyphosate for ten years by the European Commission in November 2023, even though in 2016, a European citizens’ initiative had collected more than a million signatures to ban the use of glyphosate. ‘herbicide.
Sylvie Guillaume also observes this “constant in politicization” on European issues. “Although the functioning of the European Union seems abstract, distant or difficult for some, this does not appear to be an obstacle to involvement in this or that issue,” she notices. However, the fact remains that the participation rate in European elections tends to be low. He reached 49.9% during the last elections in 2019. The extent of citizen participation is one of the main unknowns of the June 9 election.
*Links followed by an asterisk are to PDF documents.