One Thing Leads to Another: European and National Identities in French School Children

This article aims to contribute to the theoretical understanding of European identity in drawing on material from an original in-depth qualitative study on the learning of the nation by young children in France. It suggests firstly that there seems to be a form of European identity that is operating for these children, but that it is very different to their French national identity. European identity proceeds from a self-identification of the children “as” Europeans and not “with” Europe. For them it is thus a personal identity, which does not refer to a collective, and which feeds on knowledge rather than experience and imagination. The European identity of these children, born in an already integrated Europe, seems to be a continuation of their nationality : they are European because they are French. The fact that these identities appear to differ in both nature and function contributes to their lack of antagonism.