The French Federation of European Centers (1960–2000)

Since its creation in 1961, the French Federation of European Centers (FFME) aims to inform populations about European integration in their urban area, thus providing a local setting for EU issues. Today, the organization plays an important role among actors dealing with EU-related information. Nevertheless, this emphasis on a local perspective has been challenged in the past by political and ideological views on federalism and since the beginning of the 1990s has been significantly transformed by the increasing professionalization of the managers of these Centers. Internal dynamics (i.e., the institutionalization of the network of European centers) as well as external relations with other associations aiming to promote the EU such as the European Movement or the Union for a Federal Europe but also with supranational actors such as the International Federation of European Centers have shaped this dialectic between a politicized and a neutral conception of European integration.