"France is a country in deep crisis, with doubts about its identity and its place in the world"

A news analysis by Katrin Bennhold in the International Herald Tribune is called France searches for its place in a wider Union.

Like literary evenings on the Left Bank and velvety wines from the vineyards around Bordeaux, soul-searching about France's place in the world is a recurrent part of the country's cultural repertoire.

Five months after the European Union welcomed 10 new members, the soul-searching is again in full swing — and this time, politicians and political observers say, it could last a while.

While all the big West European nations are seeing their influence diluted as the Union has grown from 15 to 25 members, debate is sharpest in France, the cradle of the European project.

Morose commentaries on declining French power abound, in the press, in political books and as chatter in ministerial corridors. Meanwhile, a public long supportive of European integration is becoming less trusting of Brussels, while the French political class is fighting over the European constitution, the risk of jobs moving east, and the possible entry of Turkey.

Of course, France is not unique in seeing its role in Europe diminished; as a smaller part of a greater group, the French voice, like that of the Germans, British or Italians, counts for less.

But in France, which prides itself on its role in the EU's creation, this reality is perhaps harder to accept than elsewhere — especially given the impending end of its traditional institutional power parity with its closest EU ally, Germany.

And there is more to it than institutional arithmetic. A chief architect of so many of Europe's big innovations, from the single market to the euro, Paris these days is having trouble winning sympathy for its initiatives. Add to that recent discordant outbursts with European partners over issues ranging from Iraq to industrial policy, and France is looking increasingly isolated.

Nicolas Bavarez, who shook the intellectual establishment last year with his book France in Free Fall, says the situation has worsened in the past 12 months.

"France is a country in deep crisis, with doubts about its identity and its place in the world," Bavarez said in a recent interview.

…compared with the 1950s, when French authority in Europe's initial Club of Six was unrivaled, today's picture couldn't be more different.

Take the bickering over the new European Commission. President Jacques Chirac was scolded in the press last month for winning only the minor transport portfolio for Jacques Barrot, France's commissioner in the 25-strong body — a snub intensified when Britain received the high-profile trade brief. That followed a bigger setback in June, when France and Germany unsuccessfully championed Belgium's Guy Verhofstadt for the commission's presidency.

…According to Hubert Védrine, a former foreign minister [who originated the "hyperpower" expression and that during… the Clinton administration (!)], France's vision of Europe as a powerful political entity standing up to the United States on the world stage causes as much reticence among fellow European states as its ideas about how to run an economy.

Today it is the Atlanticists in Europe, with their Anglo-Saxon free enterprise and their acceptance of America's predominance, who have triumphed, he said. Britain, long the odd one out in Europe, has inspired many of the new members, including the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Baltic states, with its economic system and loyalty to the United States.

…Part of the problem has been France's sometimes abrasive handling of the new entrants, Védrine said. In the worst split the EU ever experienced, most East European countries sided with Britain on the Iraq invasion even before they had formally joined the EU. When Chirac clumsily told them that they had "missed a good opportunity to keep quiet," their defiance only grew.

…Back in Paris, the message is sinking in. As a senior official close to Foreign Minister Michel Barnier acknowledged last week: "In the enlarged Europe, we have to work differently and form coalitions." Obvious, perhaps, but a significant shift in French thinking.

…If some elements of France's waning influence in Europe are beyond its control, for others the country has largely itself to blame.

[Dominique Moïsi, senior adviser to the French Institute of International Relations in Paris,] says the fact that French politicians have increasingly focused on national rather than European interests has hurt France's credibility in Europe.

"If the French can't sell their ideas in Europe as easily anymore, it's in part because the ideas are less European," Moïsi said.

The issue has moved center stage at the Foreign Ministry since Barnier took over in April, when Chirac moved him back to Paris from a post on the European Commission in Brussels. During the annual meeting of France's top 300 diplomats last month, Barnier pledged to "consolidate and increase France's influence in Europe." But he also warned against treating the EU's smaller states with arrogance. "France is not great when it is arrogant; it is not strong when it is alone," he said.

This is a far cry from Charles de Gaulle's proclaiming "an exalted and exceptional destiny" for his country.

Just as that vision was exaggerated, some in France are perhaps now exaggerating the decline, observers say.

"France has always had more self-pride than other European nations," said Stefan Collignon, professor for European political economy at the London School of Economics. "They were never as powerful as they thought and, by the same token, their loss of power now is perhaps not as dramatic as it may seem."