ECI: the French are scr*ed, again?

French author, Marcel Proust

It is not the BJ’s habit (in so far that a two day old publication has cultivated habits) to use foul language at random. But the BJ reporter that attended European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture Maros Sefcovic’s press briefing today regarding the details of the European Citizens’ Initiative (or ECI) felt that this title best reflected the depicted reality: yes, lady and gentlemen, the French have been let down by Europe, yet again.

The ECI was introduced by the Lisbon Treaty and allows a citizens to petition the European Commission in order to obtain a legislative measure on a specific subject. Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, consultations and discussions have been ongoing to specify the details of this measures, which have now been set down in a Draft Regulation.

Amongst those details, the ones concerning the length of initiative texts is particularly striking for anyone slightly familiar with the French culture: according to the draft proposal, the title of the European Citizen Initiative may only have 100 characters, the subject matter 200 characters, and the description of objectives 500.

If initially these limits seem to indicate that Twitter lobbyists may have been active in Brussels to push their culture of “keep it short”, a shadier plot emerges if one listens to some commentators. A unnamed French representative present at the briefing told us that these limits were clearly inserted to stop the French from ever being successful in launching such an initiative. “Clearly”, the man stated, “this limit completely ignores the beauty of the French language and the fact that getting any point across (or even preferably no point at all) is done usually at great length. Proust and Balzac must be turning in their grave!”

And yes they must be, if one looks at a sentence from Marcel Proust in “Un Amour de Swann”:

“Mais tandis que chacune de ces liaisons, ou chacun de ces flirts, avait été la réalisation plus ou moins complète d’un rêve né de la vue d’un visage ou d’un corps que Swann avait, spontanément, sans s’y efforcer, trouvés charmants, en revanche quand un jour au théâtre il fut présenté à Odette de Crécy par un de ses amis d’autrefois, qui lui avait parlé d’elle comme d’une femme ravissante avec qui il pourrait peut-être arriver à quelque chose, mais en la lui donnant pour plus difficile qu’elle n’était en réalité afin de paraître lui-même avoir fait quelque chose de plus aimable en la lui faisant connaître, elle était apparue à Swann non pas certes sans beauté, mais d’un genre de beauté qui lui était indifférent, qui ne lui inspirait aucun désir, lui causait même une sorte de répulsion physique, de ces femmes comme tout le monde a les siennes, différentes pour chacun, et qui sont l’opposé du type que nos sens réclament.”

Yes, the French are scr*ed!