François Foret

Université Libre de Bruxelles | ULB · Center for the Study of Politics (CEVIPOL)

Factors influencing solidarity policy preferences in the EU Public

The rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union (RPCEU) used to be seen as a window of opportunity both to raise the international profile of the incumbent Member State and for more numerous and better discussions around European politics at home. The Lisbon Treaty has changed the political power and agenda-setting capacity of the RPCE...

This contribution introduces a collection that presents selected findings of the second wave of the project ‘Religion in the European Parliament and in European multilevel governance’ (RelEP2) pursued during the term 2019–2024, after a first wave in 2009–2014 (RelEP1). This new research was necessary for at least two reasons leading to an apparent...

This overview presents some outcomes of the survey ‘Religion in the European Parliament and in European multilevel governance’ (RelEP2) pursued during the term 2019–2024. It focuses on the way politicisation may occur in two capacities: politicisation through religion by its effects on the functioning of the European Parliament (EP) as an instituti...

France is regularly singled out in comparative studies for its ‘laïcité’, which is assumed to lead to the conflictual separation of politics and religion. The aim of this contribution is to discuss the actual specificity of French laïcité in comparison to other member states of the European Union (EU) regarding the interactions between nation, Euro...

La multiplication des niveaux de gouvernance et d’identification ainsi que les mutations contemporaines de la communication politique mettent en question les dynamiques symboliques traditionnelles. La coexistence des drapeaux nationaux des États membres de l’Union européenne (UE) et du drapeau européen éclaire les dynamiques de pouvoir et de représ...

Strasbourg comme ‘capitale européenne’ constitue un terrain privilégié d’étude de la socialisation des citoyens à l’UE pour tester deux hypothèses. D’une part, la proximité des institutions européennes peut favoriser des interactions directes. D’autre part, le fait de vivre au centre symbolique du système européen peut fonctionner comme une gratifi...

Citizens' perception of the presence of international institutions in Brussels remains understudied. Our study contributes to filling this gap through a survey conducted with a representative sample of Brussels residents in September 2021. The objective is to analyse the representations and practices of the local population with respect to internat...

Citizens' perception of the presence of international institutions in Brussels remains understudied. Our study contributes to filling this gap through a survey conducted with a representative sample of Brussels residents in September 2021. The objective is to analyse the representations and practices of the local population with respect to internat...

Citizens' perception of the presence of international institutions in Brussels remains understudied. Our study contributes to filling this gap through a survey conducted with a representative sample of Brussels residents in September 2021. The objective is to analyse the representations and practices of the local population with respect to internat...

This article analyses the perception of the symbols of the European Union (EU) by citizens. Relying on a survey of a representative sample of the population in eight countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Spain and the United Kingdom) carried out in December 2020, it investigates to which extent these symbols are considered as...

Since the 2000s, the reference to ‘values’ has become a key topic in the legitimation and politicization of the European Union (EU). This article studies to which extent and how members of the European Parliament (MEPs) mobilize values in their Facebook communication and whether it contributes to the politicization – understood as polarization – of...

The ‘European way of life’ (EWOL) has emerged as a new narrative in the communication of the European Union (EU) after the 2019 European elections. The article analyses the social relevance and meanings of this legitimizing narrative against the background of similar past communicative attempts; and compares its framing by EU institutions with its...

This book explains the increasing importance of value politics in Europe and Japan, shedding light on various arenas: social values; parties, elections and politics; public action, private sector and law; identity politics and religion; media and public spheres. It analyses how, against different but commensurable backgrounds, the rise of value po...

From the end of the 1970s religion has dramatically re-emerged as a factor in inter�national relations (IR). States and international organizations have struggled to come to terms with the ideational and normative logic of religious actors and issues, an approach that collides with a diplomacy based on realist and shifting conceptions of na�tiona...

The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe offers a detailed overview of religious ideas, structures, and institutions in the making of Europe. It examines the role of religion in fostering identity, survival, and tolerance in the empires and nation-states of Europe from Antiquity until today; the interplay between religion, politics, and ideologie...

In the last decade, freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) emerged as part of the European Union’s (EU) agenda in two ways: first, through attempts of its institutionalisation as a full-fledged diplomatic issue by the European External Action Service; and, second, as a bone of contention in EU internal affairs through its instrumentalization by natio...

Contribution to a forum for International Political Anthropology journal A spectre is haunting Europe: decline or even decadence. Is it so new, or the last occurrence to date of a familiar ghost? The critical distance of the “longue durée” offered by the historian or the “distant look” by the anthropologist suggest that today’s fears and doubts are...

Surrogacy has appeared in the European Union (EU)’s agenda since the early 2010s following the rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the advisory opinions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), and the rejection of this practice by the European Parliament (EP). This is part of a broader evolution imposing surrogacy a...

This book explores what drives value politics and the way in which it redraws political conflict at the EU level. Based on case studies and analyses of statistical data, the book shows what the uses and roles of values have been at the EU level over the past decades in both market-related policies and in identity, cultural and morality policies. It...

Since its origins, the European Union (EU) has increasingly relied on prizes to highlight the values and principles channelling European integration. In the last two decades, such symbolic tools of governance have shifted away from the kind of distinctions granted by elites to elites and aiming to honour prominent figures offered as role models mai...

Prostitution is a standard case of morality politics (MP), defined as a particular type of politics that engages issues closely related to religious and/or moral values, giving way to strong and uncompromising value conflicts in both societal and political spheres. This kind of issues have increasingly become a European policy matter due to their t...

The purpose of this article is to make sense of the resurgence of religion on the political agenda of a secularizing Europe. Here, the focus is placed on the European Union (EU). The religious factor is considered alternatively as an influence on political attitudes and behaviours; as an ideological and party component; and as a controversial polic...

The emergence of an EU counter-radicalisation (CR) strategy has challenged the usual reluctance of European institutions to tackle value-loaded issues. This article examines whether this new policy alters EU policy-making and especially its approach to religion. It illuminates, first, the triggers of such a CR strategy (traumatic events, popular ex...

The purpose of this article is to make sense of the resurgence of religion on the political agenda of a secularizing Europe. The focus is placed on the European Union (EU). The religious factor is considered alternatively as an influence on political attitudes and behaviours; as an ideological and party component; and as a controversial policy stak...

This article explores the implementation of the European Union’s (EU) counter-radicalisation strategy (EUCRS) and its treatment of religion. It focuses on two EU institutional frameworks that entail processes of politicisation and depoliticisation through rationalisation: the European Parliament, as the EU’s political arena par excellence where val...

Since their creation and with an increasing intensity since the 1980s, European institutions have used prizes, labels and other distinctions as political resources to perform and legitimize their action. The purpose of this article is to make sense of this governance by prizes. It documents the occurrences, uses and meanings of European prizes and...

MULTIVALID analyses the new salience of values in public policy and politics in the EU and Japan. In both polities, values challenge established practices and hierarchies based on consensus and technocratic expertise. The project explores different arenas: party politics and elections (electoral campaigns, manifestos, voting) and the interactions b...

Tous les systèmes politiques à travers l’histoire humaine ont connu la nécessité de se légitimer, autrement dit de faire coïncider la représentation de l’ordre politique idéal intériorisée par les populations qui leur sont assujetties avec l’ordre politique effectif. Les symboles constituent un moyen privilégié pour réaliser cet ajustement. L’Union...

Il existe de nombreux modèles théoriques mettant en exergue les particularités de l'UE, chacun soulignant de manière plus complémentaire que contradictoire des aspects de sa légitimation (I). Il convient néanmoins de nuancer la singularité de l'UE, qui ne fait qu'accentuer et organiser selon ses propres paramètres les évolutions générales de la gou...

Il existe de nombreux modèles théoriques mettant en exergue les particularités de l'UE, chacun soulignant de manière plus complémentaire que contradictoire des aspects de sa légitimation (I). Il convient néanmoins de nuancer la singularité de l'UE, qui ne fait qu'accentuer et organiser selon ses propres paramètres les évolutions générales de la gou...

Redefinitions of EU borders (enlargements, Brexit), geopolitical challenges (conflicts, migrations, terrorism, environmental risks) and the economic and financial crises have triggered debates on the common values that hold European countries and citizens together, justify public action and ensure the sustainability of European governance. This bo...

The conclusion synthetises findings of the collective reflection regarding the definition of values; their impact; their continuity and stability over time; their conservative or transformative effects (a factor strongly correlated with the actors that mobilize it); their distribution between materialist or post-materialist incentives; their politi...

Dijver 11 | BE-8000 Bruges, Belgium | Tel. +32 (0)50 477 251 | Fax +32 (0)50 477 250 | E-mail ird.info@coleurope.eu | www.coleurope.eu/ird Views expressed in the EU Diplomacy Papers are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect positions of either the series editors or the College of Europe. Abstract The purpose of this paper is to u...

This article analyses the place of religion in European immigration policy. Focusing on the role of faith-based organizations, the purpose is to know how religious issues, actors and references are dealt with in the policy-making process. The method relies on document analysis and qualitative interviews. Our conclusion is mixed: overall, the logics...

This book analyzes the place and influence of religion in European politics. François Foret presents the first data ever collected on the religious beliefs of European decision makers and what they do with these beliefs. Discussing popular assumptions such as the return of religion, aggressive European secularism, and religious lobbying, Foret offe...

“De-legitimizing Europe”. Does the EU do that on purpose? The EU is commonly perceived as fueling its lack of legitimacy by counter-productive policies. An innovative hypothesis is that, as a deliberate strategy following the theory of “upside-down legitimacy”, a search for polarization aims at pushing oppositions to the extremes in order to gain t...

This issue analyses the extent, modalities and effects of the emergence of values in EU politics, policies and polity. A brief introduction presents the rise of values on the European political agenda; the different forms that these values can take; their strategic uses by actors; their effects as factors of conflict, cooperation or legitimisation;...

What French members of the European Parliament (MEPs) believe and what they do as a result of these beliefs can be understood in comparison with what we know about MEPs from other member-states on the one hand, and about French national members of Parliament (MPs) and citizens on the other hand. French MEPs do not diverge much from MEPs of other na...

The aim of RelEP is to analyse the beliefs of the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and what they do as a consequence of these beliefs; the impact of religion on political socialisation within and between existing cleavages (national, party, denomina-tional); the way religiously-loaded issues are dealt with; how religion is (de)politicised...

Seven main features The analysis in this collection of aggregated data on the whole sample of members of the European Parliament (MEPs) has highlighted the resilience of national belongings and political spaces as the prevailing elements structuring the way to deal with religion. In this conclusion, it is worth elaborating further on the comparison...

It is common to oppose a secular Europe to a religious America. As representatives of cultural diversity and popular sovereignty, Parliaments are the best illustrations of mutual arrangements between politics and religion. Little data is available on religion at the EP, in contrast to the rich scholarship on the Congress. Relying on the first surve...

Democratic representation and religion. Differences and convergences between the European Parliament and the US House of Representatives It is common to oppose a secular Europe to a religious America. As representations of cultural diversity and popular sovereignty, Parliaments are the best illustrations of mutual arrangements between politics and...

European legislators must increasingly deal with issues related to fundamental rights. Religion is a frequent topic obliging them to do so. It is not directly part of the EU’s competences but is a source of values underlying policy choices and a tricky political object. Relying on the findings of a survey about what Members of the European Parliame...

European Memory in Action. Actors, issues and methods of mobilizing the past as a political resource for the EU The use of memory as a political resource by European institutions is not necessarily an example of the creation of a founding myth on the model of the nation state. While the search for a “grand narrative” is clearly one motivation for t...

Religion has new salience in contemporary European politics, but its range and nature are still not properly understood. In contrast with most other member states, France and Belgium held a common position of refusal regarding any reference to the Christian heritage of Europe in the now defunct Constitutional Treaty. The two countries were however...

Religion is not a competency of the European Union (EU), but has been more and more an issue on its agenda. The question is to know whether this plays in favour of the legitimisation of a supra- or transnational polity, or represents a further obstacle to it. The central hypothesis discussed here is that religion in itself is less a specific proble...

Les débats récents ont focalisé l’attention sur les enjeux institutionnels du religieux dans le contexte de l’intégration européenne , comme la participation des Églises à la gouvernance de l’UE, la référence à l’héritage chrétien de l’Europe dans le préambule du traité constitutionnel (Schlesinger & Foret, 2006) ou les prétentions renouvelées de f...

Les débats récents ont focalisé l'attention sur les enjeux institutionnels du religieux dans le contexte de l'intégration européenne , comme la participation des Églises à la gouvernance de l'UE, la référence à l'héritage chrétien de l'Europe dans le préambule du traité constitutionnel (Schlesinger & Foret, 2006) ou les prétentions renouvelées de f...

No abstract available.

Le débat constitutionnel européen a ravivé les interrogations sur la nature et les principes de légitimité de l’Union européenne. La dimension religieuse en a été l’un des points saillants, tant à travers la controverse sur la référence à l’héritage chrétien de l’Europe qu’au sujet de la participation des Eglises. Il s’agit de déterminer la nécessi...

Par l'edition de publications generalistes a destination du grand public, la Commission se pose en locuteur habilite a parler au nom de l'Europe. Mais dans la maniere dont elle endosse ce role potentiellement tres politique, l'institution revele sa propension a se refugier dans un registre bureaucratique plus neutre et moins polemique.

The emergence of the European Union as a supranational political order has given rise to new political rituals. European rituals such as the dramatization of European governance via a European ceremonial, the celebration of European memory in Europe Day, the European anthem and the voting process in European elections offer various theoretical chal...

En 1988, une dizaine d'années après sa mort, Jean Monnet demeure un inconnu aux yeux du grand public. Selon un sondage réalisé en octobre de cette même année auprès de ses compatriotes 2 , seuls sept pour cent des Français déclarent le connaître. Que préjuger alors de sa notoriété dans les autres pays de l'Europe communautaire ? C'est pourtant à ce...