March 28, 2024

News Analysis: Brussels Official, Criticizing France, Turns Up Heat on a Tense Relationship

To some degree, the squabbling reflects the current economic and political strains in France. But it also highlights the longstanding tensions between national governments and the European Union bureaucracy, which has taken on an especially powerful role since the Continent’s financial crisis upended politics and economies. That tension is stoking ideological passions on the left and the right across Europe, with potentially critical implications, at a time when popular skepticism about the European experiment is running high.

In this case, the problem began with an interview that Mr. Barroso, a center-right former Portuguese prime minister, gave to The New York Times just before the Group of 8 summit meeting in Northern Ireland. The issue was whether France would block the beginning of talks on a free-trade agreement between the United States and the European Union over its “cultural exception” — its effort to promote domestic film, television and audiovisual productions through subsidies and quotas.

Mr. Barroso called the French vow to block the talks ill-judged and French criticism of globalization “reactionary,” harming the goal of cultural diversity rather than protecting it. He said the perceived threat from the United States was overblown by those who “have an anti-global agenda” and added, “It’s part of this anti-globalization agenda that I consider completely reactionary.” He said Europe could not be sealed off. “Some say they belong to the left, but in fact they are culturally extremely reactionary.”

Mr. Barroso, himself a former young Maoist, is unlikely to get a third term as commission president next year, and his criticism of the French left was neither original nor especially harsh.

But his comments about France created an immediate and loud reaction in France, with criticism from Mr. Hollande and his culture minister, Aurélie Filippetti, as well as the far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen and the leftist minister Arnaud Montebourg. Less than a year before European parliamentary elections, which are expected to reflect deep anti-Brussels sentiment in many nations, Mr. Barroso has become a symbol for the kind of Brussels bashing that is feeding both far-right and far-left political tension in France and elsewhere in Europe.

The Socialist Party was eliminated from a runoff by the National Front in a by-election in southwest France, and after the seat was narrowly won on Sunday night by the center-right Union for a Popular Movement, Mr. Montebourg said: “Mr. Barroso is the fuel of the French National Front, that’s the truth. He is the fuel of Beppe Grillo,” referring to the leader of the populist Five Star Movement in Italy, which won a quarter of the vote of the lower house of Parliament in February’s election.

Mr. Montebourg, who himself ran for the presidency on a platform of “deglobalization” and is the minister for industrial renewal, said: “The European Union is paralyzed. It does not respond to any of the people’s aspirations in the industrial, economic or budgetary fields and in the end it provides a cause to all the anti-European parties.”

Ms. Le Pen, exulting in her far-right party’s strong showing, herself called Mr. Barroso “a catastrophe for our country and our continent” and a symptom of “a European system gone mad.”

In an editorial, Le Monde said, “Mr. Barroso, you are neither loyal nor respectful.” Le Point said Europe did not need friends like Mr. Barroso, while the business newspaper Les Échos complained about “the Europe of invective” doing nothing to advance the debate.

Mr. Barroso said at first through a spokesman that he was not criticizing the French government, but those in France who have those views. Of course, a number of them are indeed in the government, which helps explain the reaction.

Then he waded back into the fray. At a news conference on Monday, he said, “It would be good if some politicians understood that they will not get very far by attacking Europe and trying to turn it into a scapegoat for their problems.” He then added, “Some left-wing nationalists have exactly the same views as the far right.”

In a statement, the European Commission said French politicians should defend Europe “against nationalism, populism and jingoism” instead of “attacking globalization.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/world/europe/brussels-official-criticizing-france-turns-up-heat-on-a-tense-relationship.html?partner=rss&emc=rss