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With Merkozy divorced, pundits are seeking a portmanteau for the new EU couple. France Inter tentatively tried ‘Homerk’ but the Financial Times rudely trumped that with ‘Merd*’ reflecting the euro turmoil seriously rumpling the marital bed.

Zeus ensured Greek thunderbolts were registered by the French (Image wikipedia)

As Hollande flew to meet Merkel hours after taking office on May 15, his plane was struck by lightening and forced back to Paris –  Zeus and fellow Greek Gods up there on Mount Olympus ominously making clear their views on the Franco-German dalliance .

Earlier a deliberately low-key presidential inauguration ceremony was dramatically dampened when moments before the presidential cavalcade reached the tomb of the unknown soldier at the Arc de Triomphe, the heavens opened (Greeks again?) and tumultuously drenched the parade.

Setting out his aphorism for the term in office, President Hollande said: ‘Power at the summit of the state will be exercised with dignity but simplicity, with a great ambition for our country but a scrupulous sobriety of behaviour.’

He somberly told the nation that hard times lay ahead both at home and across the eurozone. The Socialist president was saying nothing new —  hours earlier the Greek political crisis had blown up again, markets across the world crashed and doomsayers were out in force predicting a swift return to the drachma and global financial chaos.

Eurozone finance ministers had meanwhile just met for five hours in yet another bid to save the euro as rumours swirled about a looming Greek exit,  now dubbed Grexit.

As the Economist magazine, in a piece headlined Groping towards Grexit noted “Jean-Claude Juncker, who presides over the zone’s finance ministers, lashed out at the many figures who have more or less openly threatened Greece with expulsion from the euro…I made it perfectly clear that nobody was mentioning an exit of Greece from the euro area. I am strongly against. We are 17 member-states being co-owners of our common currency. I don’t envisage, not even for one second, Greece leaving the euro area. This is nonsense, this is propaganda.”

His concerns will surely also be those of the new French president who might care to take a look at some startling figures on the cost to French (and German) banks of a Greek exit, produced by Eric Dor, Director of research at the IESEG School of Management, Université Catholique de Lille and reported by FTAlphaville here:

Huge cost to France if Greek exists euro

Apart from domestic economic woes — the French economy reported zero GDP growth in its  latest quarterly figures —  the freshly elected Socialist president and his conservative German ally face potentially anti-democratic political forces mobilising in Greece.

Greek papers note the disturbing rise of the Nazi party there: “More than half of all police officers in Greece voted for pro-Nazi party Chrysi Avgi’ (Golden Dawn) in the elections of May 6 according to this report  ANSAmed: Greece: More than half police officers voted Neonazi party   — via Zero Hedge .  Further analysis of Greek political turmoil can be found in this piece by Brendan O’Neill  editor of Spiked:  ”SYRIZA, the radical left-wing coalition that came second in the recent Greek elections, is being talked about as the spearhead of a new European movement against austerity” a prospect he dismisses as “the institutionalisation of contemporary capitalism’s own self-disgust.”

The symbol of the Greek National Socialist organisation and political party "Golden Dawn". (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Furthermore if the vast amount of current analysis of the eurozone crisis is correct, the Hollande presidency and the joint venture with Merkel — herself increasingly hamstrung as Germany’s election draws closer — will be constrained if not dominated firstly by trying to prevent a eurozone meltdown and should that fail, by dealing with the horrendously complex aftermath. As a taster of what might lie ahead the Final Report of Project Armageddon by Dr Tim Morgan, Global Head of Research at Tullet Prebon one of the world’s largest inter-dealer money brokers, deserves a read. The analysis may be UK-centric but fallout from any British economic collapse would affect all involved in the European project.

Here is the Hollande inaugural speech carried on Daily Motion:

Discours de M. François Hollande en hommage à… par elysee

The Merkozy affair is indeed over and perhaps Merde is not a misleading description of what could lie ahead now that international financiers have captured EU politicians ?

MORE USEFUL EURO CRISIS READING HERE:

• As Bank Withdrawals Surge, Athens Relies More on ECB
• Yes supporters only offering voters a ticket for the Titanic, says Ganley
• Being yes men of Europe has got Ireland nowhere
• And so the black cygnets waddle from the shadows again. Over the weekend, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats suffered an 8.3% swing in North Rhine-Westphalia as the Social democrats (SDP) and the Greens garnered a majority. Although this is only a state election, called after the previous SDP led minority government was unable to get approval for its budget, North Rhine-Westphalia is the country’s most popular state and seen the bellwether for national government. Of note is the fact that the SDP-Greens coalition governed Germany under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. Although this is as much about state politics and personalities, especially the SDP leader Hannelore Kraft, the flow-on effects at a national level from such a large turn around are very obvious:
• And more on black swans and a different perspective – “productive businesses rather than gold“

UPDATE: As if cloudbursts and thunder bolts were not enough it turns out that the newly appointed Prime Minister has a surname that poses delicate problems in some quarters: France’s Ayrault Creates Anatomical Challenge for Arab Press

Story: Ken Pottinger
editorial@french-news-online.com

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• D’oh! An awkward first date for HoMer (that’s Hollande and Merkel) (theweek.co.uk)
• Greek Vote Escalates Crisis as Schaeuble Raises Euro-Exit (premierprotect.wordpress.com)
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• No État de Grâce, With a Vengeance (artgoldhammer.blogspot.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Is Paris the City of Light because of earlier academic brilliance or the foresight of the Sun King?  Toronto writer Philippa Campsie of the Parisian Fields blog takes a tour of lamps of all standards and remembers occasional revolutionary moments. Republished by kind permission of the writer.

Pont Alexandre III, armoiries de Paris (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lighting the City of Light

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Where once cowboys branded steers with red hot irons, farmers today do it with edible-painted QR codes …  at least that’s the story in Morbihan and they’re sticking with it.

Red-hot pokers retire as QR codes takeover

(Read more French News here)
While cows from the south of the country are sometimes regarded as crazy Catalan marauders those from the north-east would appear to be an altogether more civilised high-tech breed as local dairy farmer, ‘Gildas le Behoc’, is apparently happy to attest in this video clip:

Steer hot-iron brands (at least those of any self-respecting star in the old spaghetti-Westerns is concerned) used to be simple combinations of the ranchers’ initials, while QR codes are intricate jumbles of computer-generated pixels. So why would a farmer want all this bother?

Scanning the QR code brings up this cow scratchcard

According to ‘Gildas le Behoc’, its because the code is linked to a scratch card game (see image above) accessible via a mobile phone. If a punter is lucky enough to scratch-up 3 cows on the mobile app he/she can claim a prize at the farm shop.

Here inevitably Gildas will set about convincing visitors to “try a bit of the local cheese, some fresh cream perhaps, a litre of unpasteurised milk and some vegetables and fruit from his potager and orchards”,  em fim a far more modern form of direct selling than a billboard or a signpost cluttering up highways and byways in rural Morbihan.

Great, except the video was all a hoax and then suddenly it wasn’t. Confused? Stay with us.

For according to the website QR dresscode where the whole viral video stir started in the first place (getting a claimed 50,000 views in a matter of days):

• These are real cows, on a real Morbihan farm
• The cows truly were stenciled with code (using edible ink of course)
• The cows really were scannable
• There is a real scratch game behind the QR code

While on the other hand ….:
• Gildas the farmer is an (excellent) actor
• The extras in the video are all friends and very excited about the QR code project taking place in the meadow

In fact the viral marketing operation was reportedly created by a group of “crazy tech-passionate Morbihan new media fans” and, their website adds, the  truth is: “We all had a really good time.”

But most importantly is that remarkably since this hoax video first went viral, it has become true : two Breton farmers already doing direct selling from  farmer to  consumer are now reportedly (see below)  involved in implementing QR to boost sales.

Furthermore, according to the makers of the original hoax film, this photo of a contented QR cow shows how their idea has been adapted and become a reality, (or are they still pulling our legs ?)

In reality this is how one farmer has adapted the hoax (or is this a leg-pull too)

If you scan the code around the cow’s neck it takes you to the same website mentioned above to play the scratch moo game:

For the Penn da Benn de Séné (Golfe du Morbihan) farm has decided to play the cow scratch game for real as shown in  photos to be found here.

Gaelle and Fabrice Menard, the farmers concerned offer a  litre of milk and 4 organic yogurts to all scratch card winners who visit their farm store. A draw at the end of the season will win a trip to the weekend guest cottage on the farm, located in a nature  and tourism reserve, provided scratch card players  leave  their email on the gaming platform.

Scanning the QR code  takes you to the Bookbeo website  where the Gratt’Meuh! or Scratch Moo card is found. If the lucky player scratches 3 squares uncovering cows, he wins.

According to the QR Dress Code website report  the farmers change the code on the necklaces daily while in the late afternoon Gaelle and Fabrice welcome between 5 and 20 visitors to participate in cow milking. Now apart from the intricacies of pulling teats  they will also have to explain the reasons for the cow collars and the indecipherable codes!

The hoaxers are well pleased with themselves claiming they have unwittingly created a new business opening  for hard-pressed farmers and helped to build traffic to their point of sale — i.e. farm shops – something  they believe should be of interest far beyond agriculture!

And so to  the list of  credits on the QR Dress Code website  and bear with us, they will  help you answer our own little quizz below:

“The viral marketing operation was created by a group of mad, tech-passionate Morbihan new media fans and here they all are :
QR Dress Code  which conceived the mad idea of tagging cows;
Production Plural: the Lorient communication agency which produced and directed the film as if it were a TV report;
My QReation the site that prints custom made QR coded t-shirts and supplied those shown in the film;
History of the Giraffe which produces personalized books for children and provided the image of Geek the QR cow (from a book customized with QR codes);
Imagypress and Mediaoptim – PR Agencies, web marketing, QR Codes and new technology enthusiasts who mapped the route for pushing the film to the mainstream media;
Bookbeo, the mobile phone marketing agency which developed the scratch game “cows to scratch”;
Behoc Gildas, our fabulous farmer, whose real name is Gildas Puget.He is an actor in the street performers troupe: “Quality Street” they play all over France and their shows are hilarious;
Lastly special thanks to the farmers who so graciously welcomed our mad ideas and put up with us as well as to the cows, all back to their natural colours, thanks to the Breton rain.

So there you are.  Now try our little quiz.Was the agency promoting:
Itself;
Geek, the QR cow personalized books;
Bookbeo;
Quality Street;
None of the above and still confused.

Intrigued by it all this writer asked a nearby farmer neighbour if he thought the technology might be useful to him. Said farmer  just raised his eyes and asked  ”who has time for these type of games. We are in the field until 10 pm most evenings just keeping the place  running!”
Yep back to basics then, as we mentioned in earlier story, and look where he’s got to with no mobile and certainly no QR code.

Still if you insist and want your own code, try here at QArt Coder. Ours is shown below:

No prizes for scanning our QR but it will take you to the home page

Puzzled by the headline? Try this website – Oh La Vache — for a full explanation of the most popular bovine-associated expressions in the French language.  

Story: Ken Pottinger
editorial@french-news-online.com

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• QR Codes – How will you be using yours? (mercia-group.co.uk)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Gaël Prévost, one of France’s most promising juniors and a 2012 Olympic Archery hopeful, is an unusual 18-year-old prodigy proudly raised in an isolated Clermontois hamlet lighted only by candle power. 

Gaël Prévost, France's 18-year-old Olympic Archery hope

The youngest member of France’s Archery Team selected for the London 2012 Olympics – which starts July 27 — says, with a reserved nonchalance but no sound of regret in a rich baritone: “I don’t have a mobile phone, I’ve never had one and I don’t have a computer so of course no Internet access either. But they are not things I miss. Rather it lets me live and socialise better with the people around me.”  Also, he tells a Nouvel Observateur reporter, the family has no television, “because our home is not connected to the power grid — electricity bothers my father, he prefers a simple life”.

Gaël grew up in a hamlet comprised of just three farm houses some 60km from Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne, one of the coldest and most remote regions of France and famous, among other things, for its cheese. If his coach — who says Gaël is gifted, “very very talented” — has his way, the region will soon also be famous for the first French Olympic archery medal since Sébastien Flute.(Flute, Gaël reminds the reporter, was Olympic archery champion in Barcelona in 1992 “before I was even born”).

The rising archery star was schooled at home and studied by candlelight he admits without rancour: “Candles make for a very relaxing atmosphere. I love it. It recharges my batteries. My father was a parachute expert working in skydiving. One day he just got sick of lugging the family around from town to town on his different jobs, and made a complete life change. So I lived for 13 years in this tiny hamlet, where we were the only residents and a little cut off.  My father first put up an archery target in the field when I was 6. I started shooting arrows and loved it. My schooling was done by correspondence but I went into town for archery and swimming.”

It helps of course that he has steady nerves and emotional control. Strong shoulders, superior vision and a cool demeanour are all must-haves for archery and the Riom club’s young  archer appears to have them all in abundance.

Interviewed on the French Olympics website he says: “I graduated from high school at 16, and started studying psychology, but without success. Today, I devote myself 100% to archery, it suits me very well. The preparation is intense, sometimes we do three workouts a day, including shooting, strength training and aerobic work. The pace is not easy, but it has made me grow up a lot. Physically, I am much stronger, technically I have gained a lot and I manage my emotions better in competitions, thanks to work we do over the year with specialists.”

Asked what he as an 18-year-old felt about participating in the Olympics, he said: “I don’t let it go to my head, I just live from day to day, forcing myself to do the best I can in each competition. If I do my job well, I will go to the Games. It’s that simple. For me, its a sporting goal, but I don’t dream. I think I never dreamed of the Olympics, maybe because I have no pictures of the Games in my head.”

Here he is aged 17 competing in Istanbul against Dmytro Hrachov of Ukraine for a bronze medal in the Final Stage of the 2011 Archery World Cup – Men Individual Recurve Bronze Match:

The Auvergne experience might have left him forever satiated with bucolic life . But to the contrary the reporter notes, he speaks about it “with an almost nostalgic tenderness”.

“I left home to go to athletic training, when I was accepted at the Bordeaux sports academy for promising athletes. Then I was moved to Insep where I have been for the past two years. But I love my parents’ home, its where I go to rest and relax, to get back to basics.”

Today Gaël Prévos, ensconced for intensive training at Paris/Bois de Vincennes’ INSEP Institut National du Sport, de l’Expertise et de la Performance,  a high intensity training center for French sporting elites, is a long way from childhood tranquility and his first archery club in the Auvergne town of Riom (63200). His home club is: http://www.archersriomois.com/competiteurs/

Nevertheless the simplicity of his upbringing stays with him. In Shanghai, where the French archery team was on a tour in early April during the first round of the World Archery Cup, Gaël was teamed with Romain Girouille. Between matches, the two archers each killed time in their own way he explained: “Romain switched on his Apple IPad and surfed the Internet. Me, I read Alexandre Dumas’ The Black Tulip – a very enjoyable book.”

Provost hits the bulls eye -- keeps another eye out for the Olympics

Here is a record of his recent competition results. Readers might also care to listen here to a recent three part radio broadcast on France’s RTL station in which archery coach Ghani Yalouz and Gaël Prévost participate:

• First Part  (an mp3 file that will play in Windows Media Player)
• Second Part
• Third Part

Story: Ken Pottinger
editorial@french-news-online.com

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Popularity: 1% [?]

Mr ‘Normal’ — François Hollande, the recently-elected Socialist president –has promised to “change France”. For now “change” seems focused on rowing back from the widely-detested, hyperactive style of the defeated centre-right president.

 

François Hollande on the election trail at Asnières sur Seine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

French election: what does normal stand for?

In the article below, republished with kind permission of  the author and OpenDemocracy   Nilüfer Göle sets out how she thinks the change will come:  The vote for Hollande is not so much a radical desire for change as a possibly illusory desire to go back to the pre-crisis period. The socialists have meanwhile opened up a new approach to the economy. But ‘racism from above’ has led the way in this historic fight ov

Nilufer Gole, 11 May 2012

About the author: Nilüfer Göle is professor of sociology at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the director of Europublicislam: Islam in the Making of a European Public Sphere, a research project funded by ERC Advanced Grant. She is the author of Islam in Europe: The Lure of Fundamentalism and the Allure of Cosmopolitanism(Marcus Weiner, Princeton, 2010)

 

François Hollande won the presidential elections with almost 52 percent of the votes. Since the François Mitterand years, he will be the first socialist president of the Republic. In his campaign he promised “change” to French voters. However I argue that rather than change, it is the tacit desire for going back to normal that determined the tone of the elections. The day after the elections, the French newspaper Liberation published on its cover page Hollande’s picture and the caption that reads “Normal!” with an exclamation mark.  What does the normal stand for? Does it mean that it was expected that he won the elections as the polls had predicted?  Or does it mean that Hollande represents ordinary people and French ways, against the ostentatious liberal figure of Sarkozy?

The vote for Hollande translated in the first place the desire to get rid of Sarkozy.  His aggressive style as a president, personalization of power, volatility in his decisions made him unpopular. In contrast with the super presidency of Sarkozy that irritated many French citizens, Hollande presented himself as a “normal President” meaning serious, consensual (“rassembleur” was his trademark in French) and a reliable statesman in conformity with the Republican State traditions. Many explained his success in terms of his capacity to follow in the footsteps of the legendary heritage of François Mitterand who embodied state power almost like a monarch. In this respect, we can interpret the “normal” as going back to Republican State traditions represented by the left.

During the pre-election television debate, Sarkozy attacked Hollande and implied that the aspiration for “normalcy” stood for mediocrity. To belittle his rival he reminded us that Mitterand was not an ordinary politician and that given the present context of economic crisis France needed more than ever an exceptional president, like himself, to lead the country. The fact is he already had his chance in the 2007 elections, coming to power with the same promise of changing, modernizing and liberalizing the French economy and its institutions. But the expected economic reforms did not succeed in consolidating French leadership in Europe. France lagged behind Germany in terms of economic growth, productivity, competitiveness and unemployment rates. During the campaign debates, Germany was the regular reference point as the successful economic model. On the other hand, the Socialist Party introduced the Keynesian model of economic growth as an alternative to the policies of austerity; proposing an economic programme that expands the state and public spending while creating employment and increasing the rate of income tax.

In denial?

In general, observers agree that little was said by anyone at all about the country’s dire economic straits.  French society does not seem to be prepared to acknowledge the gravity of the economic situation and wants to hold onto their rights and privileges as guaranteed by the social welfare state.  Before the elections, the British weekly The Economist, spoke of France as “a country in denial” and sarcastically described the elections “as the most frivolous campaign” devoid of any serious engagement with the economic situation. So, we can interpret the vote for Hollande, not so much as a radical desire of change and implementation of reform, as a desire to go back to the pre-crisis period, hoping that this does not prove to be an illusion. The socialists, however, have opened up a new window for approaching the economy in an alternative way. They have weakened a dominant ideology that presented neo-liberal politics as an unquestionable article of faith, the only right way, as “normal”.

The fact that the French are not fully facing up to the economic crisis does not mean that they are not anxious about their future. The rising popularity of the far right party illustrates very well the fertile ground for nationalist feelings and discourses of xenophobia. The economic crises facilitate the scapegoating politics targeting immigrants and Muslims, which singles them out as responsible for taking up jobs, abusing the welfare state, and invading French society with their religious visibility and backward cultural norms.  With this anti-European, nationalist, and anti-immigrant Islamophobic politics, the female face of the far-right Party, Marine Le Pen achieved almost 20 percent of the votes and has become a key figure in the political arena.  She has consolidated her leadership of her father’s party, “Le Front National” but furthermore emerged as the potential leader of the right. Indeed, Marine Le Pen is the second winner of this campaign; she has succeeded in setting her political agenda and imposing it. Sarkozy, in order to attract the far right constituency, had no compunction in adopting her security discourse. But in doing so, he not only surrendered himself to the political agenda of the rival, but also gave legitimacy to radical right politics.

The normalization of far right politics and racisme d’en haut

The “normalization” of far right politics is the key to understanding the changes in the European political panorama and public life. For the last ten years, we have been witnessing a phenomenon not limited to France but shared throughout Europe, the proliferation of public figures and voices that signal the end of multiculturalism, criticize politically correct norms of public speech, and search incessantly for ways to rid themselves of taboos against racism.

A succession of public controversies around Islam – namely the headscarf of young students in the public schools, total veiling, the burkha in the streets, helal meat, street prayer – have preoccupied the public scene in most European countries. These debates end up by erasing the well established distinctions between right and left, and creating a consensus on the need to condemn and prohibit such religious and cultural practices. The values of secularism and feminism have been doggedly advanced as superior and distinctive values over and against those of Muslims living in Europe. The politics of tolerance and pluralism have been condemned not only by right wing politicians, but also by intellectuals from the left and secular backgrounds. Philosopher Jacques Ranciere has drawn attention to the changing forms of racism, not that racism supposed to be rooted among the underprivileged lower classes, but the one initiated and promoted from above, by state power boosted by the intellectuals. He named such racism “racisme d’en haut”.  More recently, the day before the Presidential elections, Alain Badiou published an article on “le racisme des intellectuels” in the newspaper Le Monde (5 may 2012), addressing his  criticism to the intellectuals who reinvented the “Islamic threat” and defended the superiority of the western civilization -  thereby contributing to the proliferation of anxious discourses on immigration, cultural racism and Islamophobia in France. He directly blames those intellectuals who facilitated this mental development aiding the ascension of fascism to power.

The rising popularity of these new faces of the right surfs over the dynamics of “normalizing” widely-shared anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic discourse. Secular-left and conservative-right join hands in making anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant politics appear quite “natural”. As many say, “we should not diabolize the Front National”, they are as legitimate as any political formation. One hears among the voters of Marine Le Pen that there is no shame in voting for a person who represents the feelings and anxieties of the people, and who is ‘one of us’.  Besides the new faces of the populist right are not like the first generation of patriarchal anti-Semitic mouthpieces; they speak against homophobia, they declare themselves feminist and they defend secularism. And they are not marginal. The more they turn the political agenda against Islam, the more they become central players in the system.

A normal future

Economic recession, anti-Islamic discourses and nationalist feelings are reshaping the public sphere in Europe. In such a context, what does Hollande’s promise of being a normal president signify? There are several leitmotifs around ‘the normal’ that might be competing with each other. Going back to normal republican traditions of the left implies the defense of secularism, “la laicite”, the community of the nation and egalitarian values among its citizens. But there is another move to the “normal”; it is the normalization of far right ideas, the way anti-migrant, anti-islam discourses appear natural and consensual.

How will the socialist party defend Republicanism, the politics of “laicite”, and women’s rights without converging with the new popular right?  Anti-Islamic politics of the far right and economic recession are the two most important threats to European democracies. Can socialism be an alternative to these destructive waves? A French socialist victory bears a historical importance way beyond its national borders, for Europe in general.

Will going back to normal imply developing alternatives to economic crises, acknowledging a multicultural France (defending “France metisse” as only the leftist communist candidate Jean-Luc Melanchon managed to do), expanding democratic pluralism and embracing the European ideal? This may be way too optimistic. But at least the victory of Hollande gives us hope that far right ideas and politics can be avoided as aberrations. And that requires a new awareness on the part of European intellectuals.

This article is  published by Nilufer Gole, and openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence   It is republished here with permission and thanks in terms of  Creative Commons.

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Popularity: 1% [?]

The man who brought portable pedestrian crossings to France has created a delicate moment for Strasbourg council by publishing a map on how to pee in public in the city without being caught.

Want to cross the road? Just roll it out

Florian Rivière who calls himself an “urban hacktivist” first hit the headlines with a range of ideas for adapting everyday items of urban street furniture to other more citizen-friendly purposes. One of his most innovative was the personalised pedestrian crossing (see photo above).

This roll-up, zebra-crossing-design-carpet can be deployed — admittedly only by the brave, adventurous or foolhardy — in heavily trafficked urban areas. Because it is lightweight and portable it offers the potential for multiple reuse by truly committed pavement militants.

It will, Rivière claims, help pedestrians to reach sidewalk safety in some of France’s more high intensity traffic thoroughfares. (Users might be well advised to check the small print on their life insurance policies before use).

Editorial note: The law on how and where pedestrians may cross busy streets has been tightened in favour of pedestrians and motorists have been urged to redouble vigilance. It would appear that jaywalking has in some cases become borderline lawful since road code amendments were introduced in 2010. At the time of the change Le Figaro quoting motoring associations said: “The new measures have raised concerns among motoring organisations who claim drivers are increasingly finding themselves ‘persona non grata’ in urban centres. For many, the new provisions of the Highway Traffic Code are another blow to the motorist and further increase the omnipotence of pedestrians and cyclists in the city centre. Since Tuesday (November 16 2010), pedestrian rights have been strengthened. They can now cross a roadway wherever they see fit in the absence of a pedestrian crossing within 50 metres of the spot where they want to cross. If a pedestrian signals an intention to cross the road, motorists must now give way. The penalty for failing to do so is a 135 euro fine and four points on your license…”.

But back to Rivière’s controversial hacktivist map.

He has published all the details garnered from first hand experience on a handy Google map that identifies places in main streets around Strasbourg where he claims peeing is private and free —  in fact the fine for urinating in a public space is 35 euros.

Apparently Rivière is concerned about the lack of sufficient urinoirs (replaced all over France in recent decades by urban furniture supplied by JCDecaux the advert hoarding kings.

Partial view of the map causing a stir in Strasbourg

However his map (click here for the full  picture) has divided critics and supporters.  The more anarchical in the art world think he has done a service to the public, the law and order and neighbourhood-watch brigades are appalled.

The caption on his map says: “The Pirate Geographic Institute offers a Map of streets in downtown Strasbourg conducive to piddling with a modicum of privacy day and night. Long live the pipi street!”

The careful reader however might consider his map to be an elaborate joke. Take a close look for instance at the suggestive street names he has chosen to highlight as safe spots for the public nuisance lads: Impasse de la Bière  (Beer Deadend) or Impasse du Bain aux Plantes (Flower Bath Deadend) to name just two.

Florian Rivière founded  the “Democratie Creative” collective in 2008 and led it to  2012. It specialises in highly visible initiatives in the Strasbourg public space.

Here is a video clip of one of his less controversial hacks, giving Berlin kids a free carousel ride:

UPDATE: The BBC has this report on some of the more unusual uses for urine down the ages.

Jellyfish stings are commonly believed to be relieved by the application of urine.

17th Century diarist Samuel Pepys records the use of urine as a cosmestic treatment for women.

Scientists may have found a method of converting our pee into a source of renewable energy.

In the 16th Century, urine was used by some physicians as a disinfectant for the treatment of serious wounds.

Some horticulturists recommend the use of urine in the garden as a natural fertiliser - the nitrogen helps enrich compost.

Story: Ken Pottinger
editorial@french-news-online.com

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Prolific pavement pounders – joggers and flaneurs — anticipating helping Toulouse harvest pedestrian energy to light street lamps via kinetic pavement slabs are now destined for disappointment.

Now the pavement harvester departs Toulouse

Two years after one of the most innovative new ideas in a panoply of advanced projects  introduced by a council team under dynamic deputy mayor Alexandre Marciel, the  promising  pavement energy harvesting pilot has been dismantled. Worse a local entrepreneur initially keen to develop the project commercially has sold his rights to a North American company.

The difficulty apparently arose in convincing funders, central government bureaucrats and potential backers that industrial scale production of the energy harvesting pavement slabs, sensors and lighting converters, so successfully piloted in Toulouse in May 2010 was viable.

Laurent Villerouge, chairman of VIHA Concept, a Toulouse-based SME told French News Online that after failing to gain official support and private backing for setting up an industrial operation in France, he approached the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which in turn led to a deal with Harvest NRG, a US firm focused on harvesting energy from trains, planes and motor vehicles for power generation.

“The Trotelec sidewalk energy harvester and my energy harvesting technology rights have been sold to Harvest NRG which has plans to mass produce and market the pavement power harvester. Clearly I hope that Toulouse will eventually be one of the early customers for the slabs given the city’s role as a pioneer in the pilot,” he said.

Expressing his disappointment Alexandre Marciel told French News Online — one of the first newspapers to report on the initial electrifying development — that: “Unfortunately, the inertia of our institutions, a reluctance on the part of local  banks, lack of seed capital to finance prototypes of key innovations and a major mindset problem – namely an inability to conceptualise new sources of power such as  ‘energy harvesting’ as part of the overall energy mix  — have resulted in the expatriation of the Toulouse project”.

As French News Online reported in April last year pavement pounding in Toulouse was all set to become an officially encouraged leisure activity as  citizens set about powering-up the city.  Flaneurs out strolling or shopping seemed happy to know that as they used up their shoe leather they were helping generate power for the street lights of France’s 5th largest city.

Despite the successful pilot and the enthusiastic public response   – M. Marciel told us the project had been visited by interested officials from local authorities around Europe and elsewhere – the transition from a pilot to a viable manufacturing operation has proved insurmountable.

Toulouse’s loss of this catchy energy harvester is likely to be  someone else’s gain.

Story: Ken Pottinger
editorial@french-news-online.com

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Popularity: 2% [?]

France goes to the polls on Sunday with a good chance of victory for a Socialist President — first since the end of two-term François Mitterand’s reign in 1995 — and a result that will likely shake Franco-German control of the Eurozone crisis as never before.

Hugh Hendry warns France is 12 months away from nationalising its banks

Here ZeroHedge’s Tyler Durden relays the gist of a May Day analysis of the Eurozone’s parlous state given at the Milken 2012 Global Conference. He suggests that  fear and panic has overcome Europe’s political leaders and led to inept decisions that will eventually prove devastatingly destructive.

The video below is an hour-long coverage of the May 1 investment conference which assessed the risk of investing in a crisis-overwhelmed EU.

Star commentator is the redoubtable Hugh Hendry, a Scottish fund manager at Eclectica Asset Management infamous for his acerbic no-holds-barred assessments.

In the video Hendry tells viewers: “The thing that I fear is confiscation. Confiscation of my assets, confiscation of my clients’ assets. I fear that this thing could get out of [control]. I think we’re a year away from the French fully nationalizing their banking system…

Zerohedge says: “Hugh Hendry delivered his usual eloquent and critical insights on the state of Europe. Beginning with the statement that ‘All of Europe has defaulted’, he explained that ‘The political economy in Europe is such that the politicians chose to default on their spending obligations to their citizens in order to honor the pact with their financial creditors and so as time goes on, the politicians are being rejected.’ Between France’s election of Mr. Hollande and Luxembourg’s ‘when times get tough you have to lie’ Juncker, Hendry says the only inspiration for Europe is fiction as ‘you just can’t make up how bad it is’ as he goes on to discuss the precedent for a way forward, the grotesque distortions of fixed exchange rate regimes, why Weimar happened, why the transfer union will never happen, Ayn Rand’s reality, and fear politicians are feeling …”

The underlying reality suggests ZeroHedge is that “what the European monetary union is about is not about preventing a third so-called European civil war, it is essentially about making someone (France, Germany or both) a Great Power, a European Hegemon, and a global player.”

UPDATE: Uncannily but on cue Sir Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England (Britain’s Central Bank) has just admitted that global bankers (who this paper will continue to refer to as banksters as in banker-gangster until they have been properly punished)  almost destroyed the world economy: “Nearly £1,000billion (1,230 billion euro) of taxpayers’ money was used to prop up the banking system at the worst point of the crisis. Though some institutions fell, he said ‘almost all banks would have failed had not taxpayer support been extended’.

Bank(st)ers he warned were currently lobbying hard to block a series of  institutional reforms that would see retail banking ring-fenced off from the casino parts of banking operations, curb banker bonuses where dividends and profits are non-existent or declining and other regulatory measures designed to ensure the world is never again held to ransom by a gung-ho gang of irresponsible, short-termist, financial bubble-artists.

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Popularity: 2% [?]

Bastien Rochard, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Lille, is marketing collectible figurines of France’s two main presidential contenders ahead of the May 5 runoff. The drawcard — and a possibly unintended comment on politics in general — is that they are limited editions.

Zolla versus Zarko -- limited shelf life for both?

If it catches on, this limited-edition-politician idea – numbered, rare and destined for the vide grenier–  could turn into a runaway success. For there are few signs that taxpayer anger in crisis- ridden European Union member states is abating (see Merkozy Legacy: an EU on Edge of Implosion). Indeed the outcome of politically inept responses to the sovereign debt meltdown, exploding unemployment and low- or no-growth austerity economies is seen in street protest, online activism, and increasingly visible hard-line nationalistic politics in France as well as countries such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands.

For whatever the result of the French presidential election, the domestic agenda is now being set by Marine le Pen’s Front National (soon to be renamed Alliance pour un rassemblement national ?) however uncomfortable that is to all the other political parties. She, as no other, has tapped voter discontent, the protest vote, people’s concerns and nostalgia for the mythical ‘safer’ France of yesteryear, to the detriment of  ’progressive elites’ that have captured European centres of power. The phenomenon is well described in this reportage: Why is the rural idyll I call home voting for Marine Le Pen?

A report on the figurines in La Voix du Nord says: “Bastien Rochard a business school graduate has just launched a company — Popilz– to market the initial production run — 1000 numbered figurines of the two French politicians — as a way of testing a planned range of “Z” trademark caricatures. These are set to include Zohny, twin brother of rocker Johnny Hallyday and others not yet disclosed.

The entrepreneur has baptised the incumbent president Zarkface, a reference to the 1983 Holllywood film Scarface starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana the Cuban refugee and main protagonist.

In his launch figurines Bastien Rochard lampoons the well-publicised foibles of  both contenders. His Zarkface miniature depicts the bling-bling accessories for which the president is widely lambasted: Rolex, Ray-Bans, platform heels, and for added rhetorical emphasis, he has stuffed his pockets with banknotes.

Socialist Superman's Red Rose Symbol

The chief challenger François Hollande becomes Zollandman, draped in a Superman cape, bearing a large pink party rose on his shoulders and unkindly depicted in his rotund and overweight former Monsieur Flanby persona (the caramel pudding reminiscent of his flaccid politics) and the one his image makers sweated so hard to change with a dramatic and largely successful dieting and exercise regime.

Both candidate-figurines come equipped with an election placard bearing examples of some of their more infamous soundbites: ”CaZe toi povcon “ for Zarkface and ” 75 dans teZ dents ” for  Zollandman.  The ‘Z’ mark is PopilZ’s brand which, ambitiously, aims to become as ubiquitous as the Lacoste crocodile. Ironically given the context of much of the anti- globalisation debate during the first round of the election, Rochard’s figurines are made in China and were reportedly delivered late!

However Rochard insists: ”They are not crude caricatures, but are aimed at the collectors market with a limited edition of a 1,000 copies for each character.” Rochard has turned primarily to social networks (like Facebook and Twitter) to promote his 24.90 euro product which he sells exclusively through the Internet.

The two "Zeds" lineup waiting for buyers

The cheeky chappy who has seized a rare presidential lampooning market opportunity to achieve notoriety, does not intend to stop there however and says the Popilz family will grow.  In June he plans to launch a series of eight different figures “none of whom will be politicians “.

The video clip above shows POPILZ’s special 2012 election edition of Zarkface and Zollandman, the first two figurines in what the company hopes will become a large collection. Buy them on the website.

Story: Ken Pottinger
editorial@french-news-online.com

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Popularity: 2% [?]

It will be decades before the deepening financial and social crisis affecting EU democracies is over and along the way the very EU itself may implode.

The European Patchwork (Photo credit: Greg_e)

The popular shorthand answer for all the angst caused to largely innocent voters and taxpayers has been “string up the bankers”  but the realities are hugely more complex than were initially recognised. Here Ferenc Miszlivetz reviews the situation and ponders how it might end.

The author

Ferenc Miszlivetz is a Jean Monnet professor at the West Hungarian University, and director of the Institute for Global and European Studies of the Corvinus University, Koszeg – Budapest. He is currently teaching at the Columbia University in New York.

This article by Ferenc Miszlivetz is published by openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons licence. It is republished here with permission and grateful thanks to the author and openDemocracy.

The deep structure of the European crisis

Ferenc Miszlivetz, 30 April 2012

Instead of deepening integration, the famous Franco-German engine now represented by the Merkozy-Sarkel tandem has brought the EU to the fringe of disintegration. Where does the road lead from here? Will Europe combust, as some of its rivals and adversaries hope and suggest – or are there options and alternatives for reinventing itself ?

Europe is in a deep crisis today which is recognized by an increasing number of analysts, experts and observers. A lot has been said and written during the past year or two about the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on the EU. The crisis of the Euro-zone has been on the front page of leading newspapers for a long time. But ironically, the recognition that the crisis is actually far more complex and also a deepening political and social crisis for the European Union as such, has grasped the attention of analysts only  recently.

Although there were reasons enough – after the 2004 Big Bang, eastern enlargement and the 2005 double ‘no’ votes to the constitution – to pay some attention to the emerging symptoms of crisis, lingering questions were swept under the carpet. Against all promises, European integration remained an elite-driven and non-democratic process, and Eurocrats, experts and national politicians alike, remained supremely uninterested in identifying or understanding the deeper structural causes of any failures and negative tendencies. The lack of a proper diagnosis left no chance at all for effective therapy. Self-congratulatory official EU and national propaganda about the success of the new accessions possibly led to this self-deception: ‘Unity in Diversity’ thus remained a main slogan while increasing diversity actually further undermined transnational solidarity, silently turning core European societies against greater enlargement.

Why is Europe not leading the twenty-first century?

Before and surrounding eastern enlargement the proclaimed self-image of the EU was elevated to great heights. Books were published under the title The European Dream ^↑ , (Jeremy Rifkin) and indeed for a while many believed that the fading away of the American dream would open new horizons, not only for new visions of Europe but also for the realization of those visions. It seemed that the European construct had gained new momentum and that Europe would gain a political purchase on the global level and become a model for further regional integrations and as such a shaper of a new world order.

Thus Mark Leonard wrote in 2005:  “…far from being the problem, the EU is the remedy: giving countries control over policies that had become global”(Why Europe will run the 21st century? ^↑ ) He continues; “By giving national governments a voice in the world, the EU has saved national democracy from becoming a mere talking shop that comments on global events while the real decisions are taken elsewhere. … The EU is the only way that small countries can have a measure of control over global markets.” The buoyantly optimistic title of the book speaks for itself.

This overwhelmingly self-congratulating optimism did not last too long. Opinion polls clearly showed that old core Europe had lost its enthusiasm regarding eastern enlargement (if it had any) rightly seen and interpreted as an elite decision made above the heads of European citizens. The accession of former Soviet bloc countries had unforeseen and rather frightening consequences and European citizens soon understood that in the lack of democratic decision making on the transnational level, decision makers would remain unaccountable. The double ‘no’ votes in 2005 were an expression of dissent about the previously successful and celebrated European construction method and procedure.

European politicians, Eurocrats as well as their expert groups and think tanks had a bubble around their heads  –  a self-image underpinned by an idealized image of a desirable Europe. Instead of facing the harsh reality after 2004/2005, postponement and avoidance was accomplished through declaring a time for “a period of reflection” and projects like Plan D for debate, dialogue and democracy ^↑. The Commission recognized the democracy deficit but couldn’t find the method to cure it. Plan D did not produce sufficient dialogue and deliberation on any European, transnational or regional level and failed to strengthen citizens’ identification with the EU, bringing them closer to the European project. As opinion polls and Eurobarometer data suggest, trust in EU institutions has further declined and the turnout in EP elections likewise. Margot Wallstrom, the commissioner with a human face, created some empathy during her meetings with European NGO leaders, but the campaign did not galvanize and couldn’t even empower the so-called “European civil society” which largely remained a metaphor from above – an invention of European think tanks and the White Paper on European Governance. This time the genie remained in the bottle – societies remained passive, apathetic and increasingly skeptical.

The ‘period of reflection’ concluded with an open letter of 27 recommendations at the end of 2007. The European demos remained an abstraction; the European polity remained a non-democracy with diminishing chances for becoming a political authority with global aspirations. The eruption of the global crisis found a Europe weakened by the diminishing trust of its citizens in its non-transparent institutions; by its overambitious and less and less convincing social policy contradicting its de facto neo-liberal economic policy; and by its political philosophy. Europe was left without real leadership and the capacity for comprehensive crisis management to deal with growing discrepancies between its different regions of North and South, East and West.

Instead of expanding, de facto solidarity has been rapidly diminishing and bilateralism based on national interests has instead gathered momentum. For the first time during the entire post WWII history of integration, the German population turned Euroskeptic, and those who did not believe that European integration was a good thing started to outnumber its supporters. In the absence of strong institutions, accountable leaders and an empowered parliament, Europeans became increasingly inward-looking again. Emphasizing national interests in economic and energy policies was followed by the articulation of the preeminence of a national vernacular, culture and belonging: the social need for an exclusionary type of democracy has been strengthening, followed by the growth of rightwing populism and extremism. Germany and Britain jointly announced the end of multiculturalism as a new political doctrine. This has opened a new period in the history of European integration.

In 2011, during the intervention in Libya led by the French airforce, the French president Nicholas Sarkozy supported by other western European countries, raised the prospect of suspending the Schengen treaty and reintroducing national border controls in order to be able to legally turn back refugees from MENA countries. In a long half decade the celebrated European dream has turned into another European nightmare.

Deep structural causes of European crisis

Up until 1989/2004, those who saw, interpreted and preached post WWII European construction as a success story were not far off from reality. The foundation of functioning trans- or supra-national institutions by discovering and applying a new methodology of integration was not only unprecedented and unique, since it had taken place between former rivals and ardent enemies, but thanks to its success it became an emerging model for regional integration and development cooperation throughout the world.

What was less or not at all understood was that the conditions for the obvious achievements of European integration were guaranteed by the bipolar logic and military stalemate of the Cold War. Western Europe’s integration with itself was a nested and well protected integration – Marshal Aid, the Berlin Wall, NATO and the Soviet (Warsaw Pact) Army guaranteed the peaceful, step by step and undisturbed process of building new institutions, introducing legal guarantees and creating the largest single market of the world. Liberal democracies nurtured upon that basis became attractive models for many countries especially in East Central Europe: it seemed – especially from the outside – that welfare and democracy were inseparable.

1989 – as unexpected and unasked for as it was for the beneficiaries of this status quo – created totally new conditions: the Berlin Wall collapsed, the Soviet Union dissolved, the logic of bipolarity disappeared. The entire eastern border of the European Communities became wide open both in the physical and political sense. Helmut Kohl, an astute politician, jumped upon the bandwagon. German reunification, interpreted as the first step towards eastern Enlargement, was promptly built upon the debris of the Berlin Wall. What belonged together started to grow together. But nobody seemed to care too much about what did not belong together and therefore could not integrate.

It was neither politically nor morally possible to deny the right of post-Solidarnosc Poland, post-Charta 77 Czechoslovakia and post-Kadarist Hungary to ‘belong to Europe’ and to access the integration process. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the same was true in the case of the Baltic Republics. It was possible to postpone the date of enlargement but it was not possible to avoid it. Maybe due to the haste involved, but most likely thanks to the lack of sufficient interest, political will or wisdom, predictable challenges caused by an immense increase in diversity, were not discussed or understood and were rather swept under the carpet by both Eurocrats and their experts, gurus and advisors in the Brussels labyrinth, as well as by old-new political elites of the transition and accession countries of East and Central Europe.

The inapplicability of the old community method under completely new circumstances was overlooked by the masters of Eastern enlargement. By formally accepting the Acquis Communautaire as well as the economic conditions dictated by the EU, the accession countries contributed significantly to the enlargement of the European Single Market, without contributing to the creation of a European demos and a clear cut European polity.

The number of European market-citizens grew significantly, while their identification with the European project stagnated with rapidly fading illusions about material progress. Democracy and welfare was decoupled, causing disillusionment, apathy and anger, a response which began mostly in ‘New Europe’, but with the escalation of global crisis, has spread everywhere.

The economic calculations behind the political fandango proved to be wrong: poor and  exposed countries as peripheries might contribute to the economic stability of the centre in the short run. But increasingly complex diversity had destabilizing effects on social and political integration processes in the medium run. The boomerang effects of the one-sided and not well thought out enlargement process were felt soon after the Big Bang and were then exacerbated, together with many other symptoms of the global crisis.

Consequences, perspectives and alternative scenarios

The exhaustion of the Community method combined with the lack of understanding of the importance of deep cultural determinants of social and economic change (“ligatures” in Ralf Dahrendorf’s terminology) became a major impediment to deepening social and political integration. National democracies, emptied out by paternalistic international institutions including the unaccountable institutions of the EU, became ‘no-choice democracies’ with increasingly frustrated citizens who felt disempowered and paralyzed at the national level and, at the same time, never empowered as European citizens on the transnational level.  As a consequence, Europe has had to face a double democracy deficit, the primary source of its escalating and deepening political crisis.

Instead of offering an alternative model of regional integration to the unregulated system of the global economy and its discredited ideology of market fundamentalism, Europe remained exposed to and entrapped by financial market players and neo-liberal economic policies. As a result, it de facto turned against its own aspiration to implement the European Social Model and equal up regional disparities. The East-West divide as well as the North-South divide is stronger or at least more obvious today than before 2004/2005. The new phase of peripheralisation conducted by German-led ordoliberalism ^↑ has provoked national resistance and led to a further and sharp decline of public trust in both national and European institutions.

The political landscape of Europe is equally intriguing and troublesome. Propagating an obscurantist and misleading ideology called the ‘third way’, the left became captivated by neo-liberalism and had less and less to offer to its voters. Facing the devastating social consequences of the crisis, it simply does not have an agenda. Differences between centre left and centre right are continuously eroding. Meanwhile inwardlookingness, xenophobia, racism and exclusionary tendencies are strengthening in both visible and invisible ways. As a consequence, rightwing populism as well as extremism has been on the rise during the past half decade almost everywhere in Europe including model democracies such as France, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. De facto solidarity is shrinking instead of expanding. It is as if the spirit of Marie Le Pen is intent on replacing that of Jean Monnet.

Instead of deepening integration, the famous Franco-German engine now represented by the Merkozy-Sarkel tandem has brought the EU to the fringe of disintegration. Where does the road lead from here? Will Europe blow up, as some of its rivals and adversaries hope and suggest – or are there options and alternatives for reinventing itself?

In a recently published paper about the possible scenarios of Europe’s self-invention, Mark Leonard heralds the “near collapse of the EU’s political system” (‘Four Scenarios for the reinvention of Europe’ ^↑ ). Not referring to his earlier predictions about Europe’s leading global role in the twenty-first century, Leonard puts forward four alternative scenarios: what he calls “asymmetric integration”; the creation of a “smaller, more integrated eurozone”, a “political union through treaty change” and finally a “deal among the vanguard “ (a Schengen-type treaty).

These scenarios are based upon the tacit assumption that an elite integration can continue, motored by the same methods and in the same spirit. In my understanding this is not the case, since the lack of democratic legitimacy and therefore the lack of trust in transnational decision making, procedures and institutions are among the deep causes for the present failure of European construction.

Instead of being based upon the economic, financial and power interests of an elite which has proved incapable of transnational leadership, a real alternative should be based upon a new concept and vision of democracy which combines the deep human aspirations for wellbeing and dignity; in other words, a combination of economic, social and legal/institutional aspects of democracy. The new method for further European construction needs to be based upon social and cultural constructivism, a permanent feedback loop and political attentiveness to the different and at the same changing values of stakeholder societies. Europeans can escape the iron cage of their nation states only if they are able to find their belonging in a larger, transnational social space. The ‘cold projects’ of the market and of open society (to borrow Dahrendorf’s words again) combined with and guaranteed by European institutions are unable to offer this feeling of belonging and thus do not contribute to a stronger European identity.

The process of an emerging European demos and clearcut polity might be neither fast, nor easy and it is certainly not possible without conflict. In fact the democratization of the European project presupposes the politicization of the rather empty European public space. Transnational European political movements, networks, coalitions of civil organizations, and so forth need to move into this vacuum to compete for the support of an increasingly transnational post-national public, and by doing so define and redefine the European public good.

Europe’s political and social turbulence, amplified by the global financial and economic crisis as well as by the crisis of democracy, has paved the way for a new public discourse and deliberation. Strongly institutionalized neo-liberalism, rapidly growing national populism and escalating far right parties and movements need to be challenged and counterbalanced by newly emerging or reinvigorated democratic movements capable of representing the interests and aspirations of local, national and regional societies.

As a result of less obvious, more undercurrent social and cultural processes of Europeanization, everyday co-operation among civil society activists, student movements, professional circles, artists, journalists and public intellectuals has become routine. The open question of the European social and political crisis is whether this emerging European society will provide enough of a basis and a framework for a new public discourse and the politicization of the empty European public space. Or will Europeans choose to submerge themselves in their national and sub-national interests.

Against all odds, the construction of Europe can be continued, but only if Europe finds a new method enabling it to step out from under the double trap of neo-liberal economic policies and rightwing populisms. Debating, deliberating and identifying the new European public good might still conclude in a new politics of de facto solidarity.

 

Bibliography

Collignon, Stefan, Democracy and Europe’s crisis of legitimacy ^↑

Grant, Charles, A time of austerity and German leadership ^↑ , Center for European Reform, 2012

Habermas, Jurgen,  ‘Europe’s post-democratic era’ ^↑ , The Guardian, November 10, 2011

Hughes, Kirsty,  EU democracy in crisis, OpenDemocracy, January 16, 2011

Jones, Eric, No four-leaf clover for Europe ^↑ , ALDE Europe, December 2011

Krastev, Ivan, Europe’s democracy paradox ^↑ , Democracy Digest, February 28,

Laqueuer, Walter, After the Fall ^↑ Macmillan, 2012

Leonard, Mark, ‘Four Scenarios for the reinvention of Europe’ ^↑ , European Council on Foreign Affairs, November, 2011

Leonard, Mark, Why Europe will run the 21st century? ^↑ Fourth Estate, London and New York, 2005

Menon, Anand, Europe’s coming political crisis ^↑ , E’Sharp,ALDE Europe, December 2011

Overholt, William, The Price of German Leadership ^↑ , International Economy, Winter 2012

Palmer, John, EU voters may finally be given some real choices, OpenDemocracy March 22, 2012

Rifkin, Jeremy, The European Dream ^↑ , Jenny P. Tarcher/Penguin New York, 2004

Foroohar, Rana The End of Europe ^↑ , Time, August 2011

Schmidt, Vivien, Democracy in Europe ^↑ , 2006

Schmitter, Philippe C., How to democratize the EU and why bother? ^↑ Rowmen and Littlefield, London, New York, 2000

 

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Popularity: 2% [?]