The French Way to a Sociological Approach of Europe

This article looks back at the contributions that participated in the sociological turn within French research on Europe. Based on the analysis of these texts, this article looks at their propositions regarding how the production of knowledge on Europe should be organized. Through the analysis of the genealogy they construct, the possibilities of cooperation with alternative approaches, and the construction and selection of research objects, we evidence the presence of three versions within this heterogeneous space of sociological research on Europe: a sociological constructivist version, an idiographic version and a critical version.