France, Empire, Europe: Out of Africa?

How relevant is Empire as a cultural, political, and economic enterprise to the European Union (EU) today? References to Empire, and indeed, pervasive fears of it, are quite common in the debates surrounding the European Union. European nations are sometimes portrayed as either "colonized" (the newer members of central Europe) or "colonizing" powers (France and Germany).¹ While the EU as a whole may be perceived as an imperial force because of its size, economy, and influence, individual nations enter into it willingly and democratically, in theory at least. The manifestations of Empire have varied considerably over the course of history, but the term often conveys negative meanings, tainted by the violence of colonial empire in Africa and Asia, the Napoleonic Empire, and the former imperial Soviet Union. While contemporary European empires have disintegrated, national identities are, as has often been observed, postcolonial, in the sense that they have been permanently marked by the colonial experience.²

A powerful, persuasive EU provides a necessary and desirable counter to American imperialism, according to some, despite perceived imperial tendencies of aggression. New imperial paradigms are perhaps necessary in order to help theorize phenomena such as globalization (e.g., Americanization) and the EU. In the past several years, imperial studies have been revisited, dusted off, and put back into circulation. Long relegated to the margins of historiography in the French case, colonial experiences are increasingly being reconceived as integral parts of the national narrative.³ Oft-cited works such as Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, which problematize its very definition, will continue to provoke and inspire new scholarship.⁴ Former colonial territories and populations continue to inform conceptions of Europe and European identity today, notably in the French context. French imaginings of Empire and Europe offer a perspective on France's claim to universalism. France has had a central role to play in both the imperial and the European arenas; French colonialists envisioned a converging of the two, as will be discussed below. The critic Edward Said associated the rise to hegemony of European culture with imperial conquest.⁵ "Europe was made by its imperial projects, as much as colonial encounters were shaped by conflicts with Europe itself," claim the authors of Tensions of Empire.⁶ What did the end of colonial empire signal for the future of the EU?

The Maastricht Accord of 1992 marked a birth of sorts for this well-established yet fledging community of nations, turning the European Economic Community (EEC), created with the 1957 Treaty of Rome, into the European Union. Since then, the borders of Europe have been progressively opened to the movement of goods (now exchanged in Euros), persons, and ideas. Beginning in 1995, this activity took place within Europe des quinze, as the French referred to the fifteen-nation union. With the May 2004 addition of ten new nations to the EU, Europe des quinze has grown into Europe des vingt-cinq, or Europe of twenty-five. This newest configuration of the EU is 25 percent bigger than its previous form, with more than 450 million people of diverse origin and twenty official languages. "Europe" has clearly not yet stopped growing or defining itself, especially with still more additions pending in coming years. An expanded Europe now dwarfs the former Empire. French colonialists sometimes spoke of an imperial power of 100 million people on five continents. Four times the size of Empire, and with an increasingly powerful economic base, the imperial scale of the EU both impresses and elicits anxiety.

On 29 May 2005, the French population voted in a very high-stakes referendum on whether to ratify the proposed European constitution. It was not altogether clear to French voters whether they were expressing an opinion for or against the EU, in support of or opposition to President Jacques Chirac, or blessing or rejecting Turkey's entry into official discussions...