The right is saying: We want our countries and culture back. We want our borders closed. We want no more immigration from the rest or Europe or the rest of the world. Let France be France again. Let Greece be Greece again.
How Europe’s crisis resolves itself as yet remains unknown.
But with Sunday’s returns from France and Greece, the mega-trends on the Old Continent are unmistakable. And for the European Union, they are ominous.
Nationalism – be it economic nationalism or ethnic nationalism – is ascendant. Transnationalism and multiculturalism are in headlong if not irreversible retreat. The European project is itself imperiled.
To be sure, no one should underestimate the commitment of Europe’s elites to the vision of One Europe as challenger to the United States. In the capitals and corporate headquarters of the continent, these elites are, almost to a man and woman, devout Europeans.
Yet their ability to keep Europe on course until its peoples have yielded up their sovereignty and agreed to submerge themselves in a single entity is now in question. From Paris to Athens, the radical left and the nationalist right are resurgent. Marxists and patriots dream different dreams than the disciples of Jean Monnet.
Consider what the French electorate just said.
In the first round of voting, communists and radicals took 11 percent. Their leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, endorsed the socialist Francois Hollande, who went on to win Sunday.
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