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Finding a French European of the Year has been a tough assignment. Last year will not go down in French history as a banner year for international relations. Starting with the election of a new government, followed by a wave of terrorist bomb attacks, the general outrage abroad over France's resumption of nuclear testing, and ending in three weeks of strikes that crippled the country, did not leave the French with much time or energy to devote to the ideal of a united Europe.
And yet there were those who looked beyond France's borders and its immediate problems and remembered that its future is linked to that of Europe.
The first man to do so in 1995 was the late Francois Mitterrand. Hailed by the press since his death two months ago as the last great European, he began last year with a New Year's message to the French nation. It was his fourteenth since taking office as president and his last. In it, he warned, "Never separate France's grandeur from the building of Europe. That is our dimension and our ambition for the century to come."
Mitterrand went on to caution the French that social reforms were necessary to build a new...