I'm desperate!!!!!!!

"La France profiterait si elle quittait bientôt l'U.E. Discutez".

Meaning: "France would profit if it left the EU". (near enough)

We have been told to talk about ERASMUS and PAC (the agricultural thing that France gets loads of money from the EU for). But I'm not sure how France leaving the EU and ERASMUS would be positives, because 1) they wouldn't get their billions of Euro's for their agriculture, and 2) they couldn't send students abroad to study. Surely they would be negative points?



I have got about the current open borders and about how it's a positive in that leaving the EU would close the easy passage between countries, therefore cutting down on drug/people trafficking, although on the other hand it makes it more difficult to travel. Etc etc.

Help please!!

I don't really know about this topic, so I'm only flagging up thoughts for looking into which might be wrong here.....

I wonder if the difficulty is that you are looking at what the EU does for France through the eyes of the English. We just see them getting loads of dosh and having a laugh. They'd be mad to leave. An element of that seems to have been the winning argument to date, since as a democracy they remain in the EU.

In England the economic argument is only one of the factors. Another is that people here don't like being told what to do by Brussels bureacrats. They don't want 523ml of beer or whatever it is, or bananas that have no curve. The French people are no less patriotic and proud of their own country and traditions. Leaving the EU might be seen as a way of preserving their treasured ways of life. Eg some of their food delicacies are prepared in contravention of EU cruelty laws, and keep leading to them being fined.

Another big issue in the UK is whether we want to hand part of our control of the economy over to Brussels. As I understand losing control of the pound by joining the Euro will make it more difficult to ease social problems by playing with interest rates etc. However as I also understand it, once you've joined the Euro it's very difficult to get out again. If that's right, how easy would it be for France now to leave the EU?

As to the "way of life" type debate, you may be able to google down some french newspaper/ website/ forum discussions about the EU which you can then quote.

As to the ease of leaving the Euro, and whether joining it effectively bars you getting out of the EU, I imagine the arguments may be very similar for the UK as they are for France, so you may get some info by googling down English discussions about whether or not to join the Euro.

just some thoughts though - not really my area. Good luck!

I had to write an essay like this too. This is what I put:

France would profit:

Would become a country for the french again-wouldn't be formally attached to Europe anymore, more independence, don't have to pass certain regulations through someone else, just through their government

Bring back some french traditions which might've been lost. Lots of new holidays (ie Halloween) have been introduced into France since EU, aren't really a typical french thing, remind french people of what french values are. Would also mean that the french language would stay pretty much french, instead of English influences etc. They can still use English words without EU, but for some reason they seem to think that without the EU they would keep the frenchness in their language

Increase patriotism (dunno how, but it got me lots of marks!)

Own currency back, stabilises economy, enhances national pride (again, dunno how it makes you feel national pride but apparently it does)

They wouldn't benefit:

They wouldn't have ERASMUS and the other educational thing which I've forgotten, which help with international relations since the wars. Exchange programmes build bridges between countries such as France and Germany, which were the most affected by the wars. Also educates children of the cultures of others

Wouldn't have the secturity thing-more terrorism because they wouldn't be part of Europol *(previously interpol) which is an european crime buster system, controls borders, drugs trafficking etc means more illegal trade, immigration etc

Also not protected by EU in face of war. well they are coz the EU would help, but in theory they don't have to ( I think?!)

The EU is going to be the biggest trade power in the world, do they want to miss out on that?!

Tourism and leisure holiday makers could diminish because it would be difficult to cross the border into France (dunno, but would they still be part of the Schenge agreement if they left?)

Would Isolate themselves from European countries-negative affects for trade?????

Ok I'm getting stuck now, but those are the sort of things I would've wrote about!

Thanks Elmo, it's finished now