With the Euro-elections approaching, W.F. DEEDES and VICTORIA COMBE visit two linked
cities on either side of the Channel. They find the English and French do not agree over Europe
AS WE walked into Rouen's Notre Dame Cathedral last week, as many others are doing this holiday weekend, the light fell on a photomontage. At a glance we could see what the people of Rouen saw on the morning of April 19, 1944 after Allied bombers had done their work. The 12th-century nave was full of rubble and shattered glass.
Of course, it was an unfortunate accident of war, the chairman of a Rouen company reminded us later that day. Six weeks before D-Day, we set out to destroy the bridges over the Seine. Instead, we smashed the cathedral. "There is this story," chairman M Daniel Vanier added drily. "On the morning after the raid, people asked each other, 'How did you save yourself from the bombardment?' The reply was, 'We went on to the bridges!' "
Ending such destruction was one good reason, we thought on behalf of our separate generations, for Churchill's cry soon after the Second World War, "Let Europe unite!" Where has that vision brought us, we wondered, as next week we celebrate D-Day and then hold elections for Europe's Parliament?
In search of an answer we had decided to visit two cathedral cities in England and France. Apart from being "twinned" Norwich and Rouen both commemorate women martyrs. On this day, May 30, 1431, St Joan of Arc was burned at the stake by the British in Rouen market place. Nurse Edith Carroll, the daughter of a Norfolk parson, was executed by a German firing squad on October 12, 1915. Her statue, with her words " . . . patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone" stands outside Norwich Cathedral Close.
And now it is hard to tell which of these two cities is displaying least interest in the European elections. A rather despondent editor of the Eastern Daily Press told us that most Norwich folk, when asked about Europe, would assume the question was about Norwich City's plucky performance in the UEFA Cup.
In Rouen, we looked for any evidence of an election. We found one poster which ran "L'Europe, Oui. Mais de la Gauche". That is a good illustration, incidentally, of how the election is being treated in both countries.
Europe is not the issue. In Rouen it is mainly presidential, with news being made by a group demanding intervention in Bosnia. It is expected to get 12 per cent of the national vote. In Norwich the vote will not be on Europe, but on Mr Major's government. As one French witness put it, "When Euro politicians appear on TV they do not talk about Europe. They talk about domestic matters and compete with each other about which has most women candidates. It does not enable the French to decide whether Europe itself will be better or worse."
BUT overall we found deep differences. Most of the French believed Churchill's dream was becoming a reality. Europe, we heard, would be "peaceful", "beautiful", "strong" and "utopic". By contrast, the British voiced uneasiness with Europe.
A fruit seller in Norwich market said: "England is England. I don't ever want to be described as a European," he said, pulling out a wad of notes, "See this money, its mine and I want to keep it that way." It was a schoolgirl who had lived nine years in Holland who threw light on this. "English people find it very hard to mix with other people. We like to keep ourselves apart."
Rouen's president of the Chamber of Commerce said: "I would like to see the United Kingdom in [Europe], but you are by tradition isolationist. You have an island mentality." He said he was not sure whether this came from fear or a desire to protect our own interests. In truth, the people of Rouen showed more understanding of our position than most people in Norwich felt towards Europe. Norwich remains almost feudal. Some 30 family businesses provide the core of its economy and most have no wish to merge, expand or join forces in Europe. Norfolk does not attract the upwardly mobile,as the Chamber of Commerce told us.
For all small businesses the regulations coming out of Brussels are burdensome and costly. Large companies have the resources to sift through the legislation. The Norwich Union has three lawyers working solely on European regulations.
But the French are not blind to the drawbacks of creating a single market. They find the regulations irksome but see them as a price worth paying. In both cities we asked: are you drowning in regulations? "Regulations do not oil the wheels of trade," they said at the Norwich Chamber of Commerce. "They gum them up - and breed cynicism."Plainly, a single market requires a level pitch, and so a degree of standardisation which many in this country find unacceptable. We discovered at the European Information Centre in Norwich that all of us are on our way, not simply towards death but also to standard Euro-coffins.
The Germans understand, as others do not, that the best way to make regulations acceptable is to dominate the committees that draft them. Mr Michael Whitaker, managing director of Norwich company Autowrappers, told us that in the relevant meetings Germany would have three experts to our one. M Vanier, chairman of Novacel, confirmed this. "The Germans have certainly had a big hand in the regulations, but the French have not."
In places, the numerous regulations are starting to contradict themselves. An editor of Rouen's local newspaper told us of a big dye factory at Le Havre which under one set of regulations was ordered to clean up its act, on which it proposed to spend £12 million. Then it discovered that this action would violate another directive uncovered by an ecologist. They are now at stalemate.
There is a strong belief among grumblers in Norwich - and indeed elsewhere - that we alone play fair. When we sign an undertaking, we conform. Others in Europe sign and do as they please. "A myth," exclaimed the editor of the Eastern Daily Press. Mr Whitaker of Autowrappers assured us that his European competitors stuck to regulations. So did Boulton & Paul of Norwich, who deal with Holland and Belgium. "They do burden themselves with regulations, but they play by the rules."
Broadly, France's business and industry seem more comfortable with the swelling Brussels rule book than we are. The unhappiestlot, in both countries, are the farmers. "Farmers do not know in which direction they are going," a financial journalist told us in Rouen. "Our farmers feel they are being putin a false position," said a National Farmers' Union man in Norwich. "The present levels of subsidy from Europe cannot hold." He added, thoughtfully: "One may curse the French, but in the end the French will keep the farmers afloat."
This witness, having embraced the single market, had imported giant carp from Holland to attract anglers. This brought him a sackful of hate mail from furious anglers who felt the British record (51lbs 8oz) would be usurped by foreign fish.
In 10 days' time the voters of Norwich will cast their Euro-votes. Three days later Rouen will do the same. A turn-out of around 40 per cent is expected. The question which exercised our minds, and which we put to all, is how much weight this vote will carry. Towards the end of our talk with M Vanier, a passionate believer in Europe, we asked him: Is there democratic control over Europe? There was a long pause. For an hour he had spoken fluent English. Now, as diplomats do, he turned to our interpreter.
"There is insufficient democratic control. And the detachment of the French makes me worried. They are not getting involved in the democratic process. I worry lest one morning we wake up and find that we cannot do what we want, because a man in Brussels says no."
An editorial in the Rouen newspaper echoed this: "The heartfelt feeling for Bosnia underlines the emptiness of the European electoral discourse in our country. Although the vote is about the construction of a grand idea, i.e. Europe, the electorate is mobilising for a nation which is not even part of Europe.
"As we have not got much to say about Europe, we take sides on the issue of lifting an arms embargo. That certainly does not allow voters to know if Europe will bring more or less problems. We wonder in this context if it is worth showing up to vote on June 12 at all."
What we came to wonder, towards the close of this journey, was how far Europe, which was drawn together against the tyranny which led to the Second World War, may unconsciously be moving towards another type of tyranny. It comes, not on a roll of drums, but softly on cat's feet. The clerks of Brussels have not wrested power. It has been handed to them without resistance by indifferent democracies.
And, with the disinterest being shown in both countries over the forthcoming elections it seems plain that the clerks are about to win another round. It seems to us possible that later discovery of this may provoke ugly reactions, lethal to the grand design.
The optimists, far more numerous in France than here, dismiss this thinking. They see it all like Pilgrim's Progress. Admittedly, they say, there are teething pains. But eventually they will pass. But the elder one of us recalls that this was the early promise of Soviet communism.
A reservation among the French optimists is where Europe's boundaries will end. "Ideally, no more than 12," said the president of Rouen's Chamber of Commerce, a man who otherwise sees a united Europe and a single currency under a cloudless sky. Even convinced federalistsaccept that a bigger Europe threatens cohesion.
WITHOUT question, via a million regulations, the drive to give Europe's single market a flat floor goes on remorselessly. It is demanding a degree of uniformity which, as one or two folk in Rouen admitted to us, was unacceptable. "The idea of a uniform Europe is abhorrent," said the Rouen newspaper editor.
What sort of reaction do we foresee? "My biggest fear is nationalism," said M Arnaud Faugere, a scriptwriter, who was drinking a beer with his girlfriend in the market-place where St Joan met her end.
Those who think about Europe in this country tend to foresee the dragons in our path as the single currency and an unstoppable movement towards a federal Europe. They may be looking too far ahead. Where the people of Norwich and Rouen are nearest to seeing eye to eye is over the benign authoritarianism of the clerks of Brussels who, with the best of intentions, are running the train. From the perspective of our tour, we see no prospect of Euro-elections altering this.
