From: NINA POWER

A quick translation of the Badiou EU piece.....

[Excerpt from a seminar at the ENS, May 18, 2005. Translated by Alberto 
Toscano, May 31]

To begin with, my contribution to the debate on the European Constitution.

It takes the form of four remarks.

1) In the regime under which we live and which I have proposed to call 
‘capitalo-parliamentarianism’ (i.e. the combination of an economic 
domination by Capital and a political system of the representative kind), 
the function of political parties is to subjectivate constraints into a 
figure of a choice: whilst the macro-decisions have already been taken, 
there remains at the margins a cramped space for the sake of which, under 
the semblance of a choice, global necessities are subjectivated. In this 
system which juxtaposes in a singular manner necessity and choice, choice is 
certainly illusory, but in capitalo-parliamentarianism better the illusion 
of choice than its absence pure and simple. The moment will come when the 
apparent choice will be dissolved into the constraint, the moment of 
disappointment which is precisely the one taken up by the parties. Now, I 
note that on the occasion of the referendum on the European constitution, 
there was a dysfunction in this apparatus: something, which is nevertheless 
difficult to circumscribe, is outside the control of the parties. A patent 
symptom of this is the massive presence of a ‘Left no’, whilst the main 
party of the Left declared for the yes. Whence the question, which has been 
posed more and more plainly: why was there need of a referendum? It was 
enough, as in other countries, to make parliaments adopt the text of the 
constitution, which by far the majority of parliamentarians are in favour 
of. But in the current situation, a manifest discord appears between the 
people and their parliamentary representation. This decision for a 
referendum is due to Chirac who intended thereby to divide the PS [Socialist 
Party] (which is exactly what is taking place); in his eyes, the dysfunction 
of the PS was more important than the dysfunction of the system. Will he be 
able, as he has been in the past, to snuff out the fire he himself has 
started? Only time will tell. It remains the case that there are – sometimes 
furious – debates in society, that bar-talk and family discussions are 
stirred up, and that, on the occasion of a vote, i.e. in an immediate 
relation to the State, a subjectivation outside the frame has taken place. 
What will the consequences be? Perhaps nonexistent, perhaps not – no one 
knows (by definition, because they are outside the frame).

2) In the division between the ‘yes’ vote and the ‘no’ vote there has 
appeared – and it is a relative novelty – the argument from authority. In 
other words, the correlation, which Foucault would have appreciated, between 
knowledge and power: the ‘yes’ is the choice of enlightened people (experts 
of all sorts, without forgetting journalists), the ‘no’ belongs to the 
ignorant. The criticisms levied against Chirac on the choice for the 
referendum overlap with this argument: it is not a good idea to entrust 
matters as important as Europe to the decision of an ignorant mass; one 
could, or rather should, put the ignorant fraction of the population outside 
the capitalo-parliamentarian system (a theme which is already explicitly in 
circulation in the U.S.A. where grosso modo only half the population takes 
part in voting). To be a proper citizen, one needs (would need) a specific 
qualification; that’s the idea, an idea that, of course, is equally 
correlated to the failure of the control of subjectivities by parties. Are 
we witnessing a surreptitious return of the doctrine of suffrage based on 
tax status? The truth is that if one wishes to break with the 
capitalo-parliamentarian apparatus (and this has always been true in the 
past for the break with the dominant apparatuses), one will invariably be 
treated sooner or later as a barbarian. It’s inevitable. On the part of the 
right, but also the left (because there is an entire series of predicates of 
the ‘republican tradition’ vis-à-vis which the position of rupture is 
considered as barbarian). In any case the ‘no’ appears as a ‘barbarian’ 
choice.

3) In the text of the constitution itself there are anti-barbarian clauses. 
I’m thinking of everything which concerns ‘migratory flows’. The European 
state of affairs must be defended (cf. Foucault, Society Must Be Defended). 
The text pronounces itself on the question of the delimitation of what our 
societies are ready to admit and not to admit in the relations between the 
barbarians and us. The European idea only counts here as exclusion.

4) But Europe as a ‘great new Idea’? Or, what is Europe worth in ‘critical’ 
European statements, such as: ‘I’m for Europe, but…’? My personal view is 
that Europe, Europe as Idea, is already dead; voting for Europe is voting 
for a corpse. As far as I’m concerned, I won’t vote. There are only two ways 
of envisaging Europe as a singularity: a) conceiving it in the framework of 
inter-imperialist rivalry (Europe versus U.S.A.) – but this is a schema that 
belongs to the past; b) thinking it as a heterogeneous power, i.e. both 
heterogeneous vis-à-vis the U.S.A. and as a new type of power. This question 
of power, and in particular of military power, remains a decisive test to 
qualify a singularity. Now, what is going on with Europe? I must say that 
the incapacity of the European powers (England, France, Germany) to treat at 
the time the question of Yugoslavia as well as the consequences of this 
incapacity (the bombing by American planes of a country placed at our 
doorstep) had for me the significance of a verdict: Europe does not exist. 
This was confirmed by the attitude of the same powers vis-à-vis the American 
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If the ‘no’ wins, we are threatened with a possible regression with regard 
to Europe. But I think that this backward step is necessary. What is on the 
agenda is effectively a 'beyond' of the national sphere – with the 
difference that this beyond must be subjectivated on the basis of what 
exists in the national sphere itself. We reencounter our question: the 
necessity of the identification of a figure of the adversary. The question 
of a power of a new type, of a power opposed to U.S. hegemony and which 
would not be symmetrical vis-à-vis U.S. power – a decisive question, which 
today largely remains open. This is at least as important as ‘social Europe’ 
(to which I am in any case favourable). We must take up the European 
question again from the base. As you know, I have publicly pronounced myself 
on this, I think this must pass through a new Franco-German alliance (and 
this after having put the English out, for the time necessary for them to 
reflect).

That is my contribution to the electoral debate.