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The current constitutional crisis can be seen as a Tocquevillian moment for the European Union, which, since 1989, has been living in a period of transition between the end of a purely aristocratic logic of integration and the possible blossoming of a democratic structure within a paradigm liberated from nationalist agenda. To get out of this transition, the French must first take a Copernican revolution, which will lead them to no longer want a Union that resembles a larger France, but rather a developing 'demoï-cracy.' It is a matter, then, of exploring a paraconstitutional path that will look to escape the current period in the best way possible, while at the same time avoiding both the illusion of a possible restoration of the pre-constitutional status quo and the contradictions of a short-term 'neoconstitutional' path.

Kalypso Nicolaïdis, an invited Professor at the Institut d’études politiques of Paris, teaches International relations at Oxford University and participated in the work of the Convention, as an Advisor to George Papandreou, then Greece’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.