ABSTRACT
There is no doubt that one of the most important influences on the functioning of the French political process over the last four decades has been the development of the European Communities/European Union (EC/EU). Although the pace of European integration has been uneven since the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and although the extent of Europeanisation still varies across the different aspects of the policymaking process, there is now scarcely any aspect of French politics that has not been touched at least to some degree by the impact of European integration. That said, there continues to be disagreement as to the overall effect of Europe on the French political system. There is a debate about the extent to which France has become Europeanised. This debate is the focus of this chapter. It examines the extent to which European integration has changed the French policy-making style. More specifically, it addresses the issue of whether there is a style of policy making that is uniquely French in its operation or whether policy making in France now takes place under essentially the same conditions and manifests itself in basically the same way as policy making elsewhere in Europe.
