LARREULE, France — Elections in my small village of Larreule, in southwestern France, are usually sociable, predictable affairs.
When the polls close, a handful of residents gather in the village hall to watch the transparent urn being emptied and the ballot papers recorded in triplicate before the totals are sent to the local prefecture in Tarbes.
The results were typically just as predictable. Historically, rural southwest France has always voted for left-wing candidates who are decisively in favor of the European Union. That all changed this year.
In May’s European Parliament election, a third of our 183-strong electorate voted for Euroskeptic parties, especially the far-right National Rally.
The results amounted to a doigt d’honneur to the political elites of Europe. The mood of frustration and anger that gave rise to the Yellow Jacket protests is alive and well here.
There is no open channel of communication that can carry the voice of the average voter up to those in power.
Away from the capital, many people feel that no one — whether that’s in Paris or in Brussels — is listening to them.
The election campaign — and the vote in Larreule — got me thinking about why that is.
Europe’s elites couldn’t listen to the people they serve even if they wanted to. There is no open channel of communication that can carry the voice of the average voter up to those in power — let alone the voice of those so disenfranchised they have given up on the ballot box.
In the weeks before the May election, I exchanged emails with Christian Wigand, a spokesperson for the European Commission. I suggested the EU is out of touch with ordinary Europeans — an idea he disputed, supplying facts and figures to disprove theory. A recent survey, he said triumphantly, had shown that a majority of European citizens agree with the statement “my voice counts in the EU.”
In rural France, main people feel that they have been forgotten about by the people in charge | Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images
So why do so many people in rural France feel voiceless? Any fool can make a country or a pan-continental union appear democratic. What distinguishes a true democracy from a sham one is effective communication — and not from the top down, but the other way around.
The people — the real source of politicians’ authority after all — must be able to speak clearly and effectively to their appointed officials. Put more simply: An average European like me must be able to communicate to those making the big decisions that determine the course of European politics.
Wigand didn’t seem to like the idea there might be room for improvement. Things are all right as they were, he assured me.
So I decided to take his word for it and try out the channels that already exist. How can an individual EU citizen convey his or her thoughts — whether that’s approval, criticism or suggestions — to the EU executive?
Let’s start with the basics. You have overt democratic rights. The vote that really counts is for your national parliament: It appoints a government that sits in the European Council and sends a representative to the Commission on your behalf.
Even if you assume the electoral system is fair — which arguably isn’t always the case, as in the U.K.’s first-past-the-post system — your voice is still submerged in a cacophony of other electors and filtered through your country’s party system. It is quite possible that next to nothing of what you want by way of European policy will be communicated by the means of a general election.
You can also vote for an MEP every five years. But there are pitfalls there too. As a Brit living in France, I am part of a single national constituency of 47.3 million represented by 73 MEPs. Here too, your vote gets lost.
Write an email or a letter? Good luck with that. You will almost certainly get a defensive bureaucratic rebuff after a long delay.
Conveying a message from the roots of the tree to the preening cockatoo sitting on the uppermost branch is close to impossible. And ultimately, the Parliament doesn’t have as much power as the other institutions, playing a secondary, marginal role.
There are other options. The Commission makes an effort to go out and meet the people in public meetings called Citizen’s Dialogues, held in public halls in various EU countries. A noble idea, you might think, until you consider the practicalities.
Curious about these get-togethers, I looked up my nearest Citizens’ Dialogue. It turned out it was held last year and there was no other date on the horizon. It was also in Toulouse.
Attending would have required four hours of driving (burning fossil fuels) to attend, and a day’s lost earnings, as I am self-employed. The event would be even more difficult to reach for the disabled, the elderly or the poor. The inarticulate, the undereducated and the immigrant learning a new language probably wouldn’t dare walk through the door.
The Commission is proud that 175,000 citizens have participated in these events over the last two years. It’s an impressive sounding figure, but well below 1 percent of the population of Europe. If the village council in Larreule called a public meeting with the same success rate it would have an audience of 0.14 people — nowhere close to quorum.
The European Commission has involved 175,000 people in Citizens’ Dialogue events over the past two years — but that doesn’t tell the full story | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Another way for the Commission to monitor its performance — and what people think of it — is by conducting consultations and surveys. In particular, the EU depends on Eurobarometer reports that it says return a detailed portrait of the views of the people inhabiting the bloc’s 28 countries.
But how accurate are these? These surveys are based on 1,000 face-to-face interviews in each country. A sample of 27,601 people is equivalent to 0.0055 percent of the EU’s population. Worse, if 1,000 people per country are consulted, that means almost 0.2 percent of the population of Luxembourg gets a voice while only 0.001 percent of Germans do. An individual voice is entirely lost in a thicket of impressive statistics.
Another spokesperson, Natasha Bertaud, was keen to tell me about the Commission’s new push to consult European citizens through the “Have your Say” facility of the EU’s official website, and pointed to the huge success in getting Europeans to share their view about scrapping summertime. Some 4.6 million people responded to the public consultation, with 80 percent in favor of ending daylight savings. Look a little closer though, and you see that a large majority of responses came from Germany. The results of 19 of the 28 countries weren’t even big enough the register in the statistics.
So, what does that leave you with, if you want to make yourself heard?
Taking to the streets is the only option left for people who feel disenfranchised | Georges Gobet/AFP via Getty Images
Write an email or a letter? Good luck with that. You will almost certainly get a defensive bureaucratic rebuff after a long delay.
If you feel strongly about something and can rally people to your cause, you can also create a petition — a “citizens’ initiative” in EU parlance — but there is no guarantee you will thereby effect a change in law.
All that is left after that is direct action: Take to the streets, wave banners, follow your closest demagogue, cut and paste lies on social media. This is what happens when feelings of frustration and powerlessness find no outlet. We’ve seen it happen across Europe in the past years, and it should make us worry for the state of our democracy.
If the European project is to survive, it needs to have a conversation with the people who believe in it and those who have lost faith in it. They have plenty to say and no way to say it.
Nick Inman is an author based in France and a regular contributor to France’s English-language newspaper, the Connexion.