Book. When Europeans go to the polls to renew the Parliament of the European Union, they commit to bringing democracy to life on the continent and also address the entire international community. The message is simple: Europe is a sum of ideas, forces and values that must be shared, disseminated and made known. But above all it is a long history that Europeans want to maintain through the trials that the Old Continent is going through. This story is that of a Europe which dominates the world, that of a Europe which suffers from the world or even that of a Europe which is marginalized in the world.
These three itineraries, the academic Pierre Haroche brings them together in a captivating and enlightening essay (In the forge of the world. How the clash of powers shapes Europe, Fayard, 224 pages, 21.50 euros) on the eternal quest for Europe, divided between two questions: who am I? And who is the other? Between identity and otherness, Europe evolves in a world in perpetual movement. But if, at each key moment in its history, it has relied on common fundamentals, its social body and its face have, for their part, never stopped changing: “Europe made the world and the world made Europe”writes the lecturer in international relations at Queen Mary University of London.
His words are clear, sharp and chiseled. Divided into three parts (powerful Europe, vassal Europe and marginal Europe), the demonstration retraces the long odyssey of the Old Continent, always in search of itself and exposed to the random gaze of the other. All this while raising three major questions: when imperial Europe imposes itself in the international arena, does it support the thesis of a multipolar world? When vassal Europe left the big leagues, did it suffer the shocks of an international system that escaped it? Finally, when marginal Europe becomes a blind spot in world affairs, what room for maneuver does it have left to influence global issues?
Find his place
Pierre Haroche suggests not answering these three questions, because each of the tests (empire, vassal, marginal) ultimately turned against Europe, he concludes. Its successive wars have finally destroyed it, its colonial past has become a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of the rest of the world and its democracy no longer enjoys this attractive force as it once did in the face of the growing illiberal model.
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