Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2020 Were the French government’s Brexit-related worries prior to the 2016 referendum overstated? Claudia Michelle Chandra Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses Part of the International Relations Commons, and the Other International and Area Studies Commons Recommended Citation Chandra, Claudia Michelle, "Were the French government’s Brexit-related worries prior to the 2016 referendum overstated?" (2020). CMC Senior Theses. 2512. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/2512 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Claremont McKenna College Were the French government’s Brexit-related worries prior to the 2016 referendum overstated? submitted to Professor Hilary Appel by Claudia Michelle Chandra for Senior Thesis Fall 2019–Spring 2020 May 11, 2020 Table of Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………...... 3 Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………… 4 Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………… 5 1. France’s role in European integration I. France’s leading role in integration ……………………………………………. 10 II. French leaders emerge as champions of integration …………………………… 11 III. The growth of Euroscepticism in France ………………………………………. 17 IV. Current attitudes toward integration …………………………………………… 23 2. Why France resisted the 2016 Brexit referendum I. Unpreparedness ………………………………………………………………… 30 II. Ideological worries ……………………………………………………………... 34 III. Security worries ………………………………………………………………... 37 IV. Economic worries ……………………………………………………………… 42 3. France in the Brexit negotiations I. Why France maintained a tough stance in the Brexit negotiations …………….. 48 II. The validity of France’s Brexit worries ………………………………………... 54 4. Impact of Brexit on French attitudes toward the EU I.