European Misunderstanding

About the Book

André Gauron's central argument is blunt: European integration was built on a misunderstanding from the very start, and that misunderstanding is fear — specifically, France's fear of Germany. Everything that followed, from the Franco-German partnership to the single market to the euro, grew out of that original anxiety rather than any genuine shared vision of what Europe should become. Gauron, a French economist with a long career analyzing political economy, traces this tension from the postwar era through the Adenauer-de Gaulle axis, Schmidt and Giscard d'Estaing, and finally Kohl and Mitterrand — the last generation of leaders whose thinking was shaped directly by World War II.

With those figures gone from the political scene, Gauron argues that the foundational myths holding the project together are dangerously exposed. Germany reunification, EU enlargement, and the launch of the euro have all shifted the ground beneath the Franco-German partnership, yet European institutions keep operating as if nothing has changed. The book tears into the single market as a framework that created civil liberties for goods and capital while leaving actual citizens largely voiceless. The chapters on the euro are particularly sharp, showing how monetary union was sold as a technical solution to what is fundamentally a political problem nobody wanted to solve honestly.

Gauron isn't simply a Eurosceptic — he genuinely wants European integration to succeed. But he insists it cannot succeed while built on evasion. This is a serious, readable critique of EU politics and economics that feels remarkably relevant to debates still happening today.