Brexit and foreign policy discourses. An analysis of French and German governmental discourses around European Defence Policy since 2016

This article aims at demonstrating how Brexit impacts French and German foreign policy discourses on European defence since 2016. By mixing discursive institutionalism and the concept of political entrepreneurship as proposed by Kingdon in his multiple streams model, the article analyzes the discursive and symbolic dimension of the change impelled in CSDP as a result of the referendum on Brexit. The article highlights the existence of two types of discourses deployed by French and German governmental entrepreneurs: coordination discourses aiming at bringing qualitative change to European defence by coordinating action at the EU level, and communication discourses aimed at legitimizing proposals in this area and the return of Franco-German leadership in CSDP after Brexit. The interest of this approach is to grasp how these discourses are deployed at the European level while fundamental normative divergences continue between the actors.