Month: July 2016

Refondés en 1894 par Coubertin, les Jeux olympiques (JO), célébration de la virilité, sont réservés aux sportifs ; admises à participer à partir de 1900 aux épreuves dites compatibles avec leur féminité et leur fragilité, les femmes demeurent exclues des épreuves reines de l’athlétisme. Sur l’initiative de la Française Alice Milliat et de la Fédération sportive féminine internationale (FSFI), un bras de fer s’engage avec le Comité international olympique (CIO). Pour le faire céder, sont organisées des Olympiades féminines de 1922 à 1934. Les JO se féminisent peu à peu mais le déséquilibre sexué, y compris au CIO, domine tout le xx^e siècle. Pour lutter contre ces effets de genre, la charte olympique rend obligatoire depuis 2007 la présence des femmes dans tout sport ; en 2014 la Commission européenne défend, elle, l’égalité dans le sport et le CIO inscrit la parité à l’agenda olympique 2020.

(à venir)

Parliaments in Europe are the place where the representatives of citizens debate.  They express the collective will through delegation and mandate. According to the origin of the word, used in England since the thirteenth century, parliaments are places for speaking, as well as the space for communication organized as much for internal use as for external interaction. The introduction of technologies (from the press to the radio and television) transformed the interaction between members of parliament and their constituents.

Since its creation, the European Union has been based on an institutional architecture that is unique in the world, formed by the European Council, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice, an ensemble that relies on inter-institutional bodies, such as the European Central Bank, the European External Action Service and the Committee of the Regions. This institutional wealth is poorly understood by citizens, who hold the EU responsible for the economic crisis. The populism that is asserting itself threatens the foundations of the EU.

The existence and characteristics of a European public space, considered as indispensable in the process of European construction, have been the subject of a debate dating back to the 1950s. Formulated based on the Habermasian concept of Öffentlichkeit (public space), the European public space is considered in turns as having always existed, as being currently under formation, or as impossible to carry out. It has therefore proven to be a shifting concept beset by a permanent process of redefinition.

For socialists, Europe was both an area for political practices as well as an ideological horizon. The road of exile and international congresses made the continent into a lived space. This territory was later conceived of as a political place, however European integration deeply divided socialists, even if a number of their leaders were prominent figures in the construction of Europe. Parties from the north were especially reluctant to join the community, seen as being too neo-liberal.

Some Fascists engaged in a process of reflection on Europe in a way that was disorganised at first, but then more systematic after 1930. From a liberal and nationalist viewpoint, Europe was an entity that should reflect a hierarchy of nations. This concept was developed in response to various competing models—the Geneva system, federalist ideas, Communism—and shaped by Social Darwinism. Through the process of totalitarian and imperialist radicalisation, it resulted in the idea that a ‘guide nation’ should give definition to a community of political values and assume the economic management of Europe.

The idea of a tension between national and European ideas, today widespread in public opinion, is simply the result of long-term tensions which have left their mark on European history since the Middle Ages, from the rivalry between a papal Europe and a continental Europe in the medieval and early modern period to projects for a European balance of power in 1815 based on supranational empires opposed to national movements. The national idea itself was not always expressed in opposition to Europe, particularly in the nineteenth century; in fact, it has often directly or indirectly fed off this idea.

When Franz Kafka described the Brescia airshow in 1909, he served as a witness of Europe’s enthusiasm for fledgling modern aviation. After a few spectacular performances, such as Blériot’s crossing of the English Channel, the conquest of the air became a sporting reality giving rise to international rivalries. Kafka’s account, which grasped the poetic aspects of the aeronautical event, was nevertheless weighed down by fears one could call prophetic, in view of the soon-to-come First World War, and the role aerial weaponry played therein.

Illuminated advertising appeared at the turn of the twentieth century. Consisting of incandescent lights and later luminescent neon tubes, its emergence took place in pace with transatlantic circulation. After the blackout for World War Two, not all cities experienced the same rebirth of commercial lighting. The longstanding suspicion of public authorities increased with oil crises, and this questioning is still largely tangible today, giving European cities a singular advertising appearance.