Europe Goes Local

Over the weekend in France, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the euroskeptic, anti-immigrant Front National party, met supporters in Calais, the seaside city that has become a well-publicized magnet for refugees. Le Pen is standing as the FN candidate during elections in December in the region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie.

Le Pen logically sees the region as the perfect launching point for her platform -- leave the European Union, stop immigration, shine a light on the distance between the political elite in Paris and the realities outside the capital -- and she hit all the usual notes. Le Pen's Twitter account was ablaze with recriminations of just about everyone and everything -- from the U.S.-EU free trade deal currently under negotiation, to the failures of former president and current center-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. Brussels technocrats operate in the shadows, far away from Europe's peoples; well-wishers in Paris who would welcome refugees are hopelessly removed from the reality of places like Calais; and, in one bit of biting sarcasm:

"For some, immigration is an opportunity ... May they come to Calais to see this opportunity that benefits its citizens so greatly."

Meanwhile in Britain, George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer and a Tory leading light, expounded during the Conservative Party conference on his vision for fiscal devolution -- one that reverses his party's former centralizing impulse and grants powers and responsibilities to local councils. Center-right commentators were thrilled enough, with The Telegraph saying Osborne now must drive his devolution revolution to Europe:

"Mr Osborne's localism is driven by his understanding that much of Britain's corrosive discontent with politics stems from a feeling that power is exercised remotely, that government is something done to people and communities by politicians who are far away -- both physically and culturally -- from those affected by their decisions.

"Yet that analysis must also be applied beyond Britain's shores. Many of those decisions that affect our lives are not made in Westminster, but in Brussels and Strasbourg."

The juxtaposition of Le Pen's assertive line in Calais and Osborne's localizing impulse in Britain sounds a key tonality in the Continental euroskeptic crescendo. As Douglas Murray points out, euroskepticism is now on the rise everywhere, even in the geographical and ideological heartland of the European project. The Dutch are calling a referendum on EU enlargement, and the decision to back Greece's bailout has crippled that country's ruling coalition. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel's popularity is dimming. In Italy, what does the most to keep center-left, pro-EU Premier Matteo Renzi in power is the almost purposeful disarray of his opposition. Per Murray:

"The EU's fiscal crisis has been taken over by a political one, and now across the entire continent the old, legitimate borders are reasserting themselves."

But this is about more than voters wanting to back out of Europe. As eurobarometer polling finds, the European Union remains downright popular when compared to respondents' own national governments. Voters are souring on Brussels. But they are souring even faster on Athens, Paris, and Madrid. That could be seen in Portugal this weekend, where an apparently improving economy bought only a weak mandate for Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho; in Scotland, Catalonia, and Flanders, regions where secessionist movements are more entrenched all the time; and in Greece, where, as Yanis Varoufakis points out, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras won re-election after baptising himself as a steward for European policies, but Greece lost 1.6 million voters in the process.

So which borders are reasserting themselves -- and who will get to reassert them? As key referenda and elections line up between now and 2017, Calais, Valladolid, Manchester, and Bavaria will make their voices heard. Each vote could change the nature of European decision-making, at a time when its consistency has never been more important.

Around the Continent

Tribal logic: The Centre for European Reform's John Springford sees the rise Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a symptom of a discursive breakdown in British politics. Compromise is out, Springford writes, and groupthink has taken its place:

"The stable liberalism of the pre-2008 period is crumbling, giving way to ideological contest between three political tribes -- a Corbynite left, the Conservatives and the Scottish nationalists -- which imperils Britain's membership of the EU, and the future of the UK.

"Between 1992 and 2008 there was consensus over the big policy questions of the age: that the state should reflect and nurture the country's social liberalism, and provide more rights and opportunities for minorities and women; that it should intervene in markets only to correct obvious failures; that pro-work redistribution through tax credits and a minimum wage should counter poverty and inequality; and that more should be spent on improving public services. Now, Britain's parties are retreating into ideological comfort zones, ignoring or attacking evidence that contradicts their prior beliefs, and choosing policies less on a careful analysis of outcomes than on tribal orthodoxies."

The Portuguese miracle? A pessimist might say Der Spiegel buried the lede here -- Portugal's unemployment rate still sits at 12 percent -- but nevertheless, this snapshot of an economic resurgence in Portugal offers some hope:

"They took risks and established their own businesses, reinventing traditional products, opening hotels with new twists and unusual restaurants. They developed software and became fashion designers. In doing so, they also transformed Lisbon into one of Europe's most popular travel destinations while at the same time creating an unexpected economic upswing and helping to bring an end to the country's blues.

"The transformation is particularly apparent in Lisbon, but also in many other places. You see it in the Embaixada, an 18th century palace that has been converted into a chic shopping center in Lisbon's historic quarter. It's a collective concept store and serves as a sort of embassy for the best products made in Portugal.

"'Just sitting around at home was no answer,' says Raquel Guedes, 29. ‘If you can't find something in your own field, then you have to get something else going.' Guedes started out as a nursery school teacher and had gotten by over the years covering for other women on maternity leave. But eventually she got tired of it and instead set off on her own designing children's clothing. Now she rents her own small shop inside Embaixada."

The shirts off their backs: An Air France board meeting turned violent:

"A violent Air France protest in which striking workers stormed a board meeting and ripped the shirts from executives' backs has been denounced by François Hollande as unacceptable and bad for France's image.

"After pictures of bare-chested executives fleeing over a fence with their clothes torn to shreds made front pages across the world, the French president said: ‘Social dialogue matters, and when it's interrupted by violence and disputes take on an unacceptable form, it can have consequences for the image and attractiveness [of the country].'"

What's in a word? Sarkozy's criticism was more poignant than that of President Francois Hollande. The leader of Les Republicains brought back a Gaullist scatological pun to describe the discontent roiling France, and in particular the actions taken by striking workers. Le Figaro:

"The leader of the party (headquartered in Rue de) Vaugirard, speaking to party deputies, deplored a generalized chienlit."

"Coined in 1968 to denounce the disorder caused by events in the month of May (‘reform yes, chienlit no'), the term is the flavor of the day again, used by the former president to characterize a ‘disintegrating state.'"

Added the former president: "We are not in 1793."

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