Are the French stuck with an increasingly incapacitated state, whose role has been elevated to that of an empty religion?

Probably the most striking departure of [Italy's election] campaign comes on its margins

writes John Vinocur in the International Herald Tribune.

It involves Marcello Pera, president of the Italian Senate, who is trying to inject the issue of a disappearing Italian and European identity into voters' concerns.

… He calls Britain's attempt at multicultural integration an obvious failure, and explains the French approach to its Muslim community as "nationalist and secularist." The notion here is that the French are stuck with an increasingly incapacitated state, whose role had been elevated to that of an empty religion.

… extrapolating from an idea belonging to André Glucksmann, the French political theorist, I credit Pera with underlining the argument, perhaps for the first time in a national election campaign, that defending Europe's identity is an existential matter that must not be left for nihilists to mock or fascists to seize.