Centre d'Excellence Europe Capitole

The objective of the Europe Capitole Centre of Excellence’s        programme is to study the place and role of fundamental freedoms in European integration.

Fundamental rights are legal and political instruments that can affect the direction and content of European integration; their nature and the numerous ways they intersect with the law and political science deserve to be examined from legal and political perspectives.

In the spirit of Jean Monnet who advocated for the union of peoples, this study has been made accessible to Europeans through the Lectures on Freedoms series.

 

Lecture on the book, ‘The law against democracy?’, by Bertrand Mathieu, a professor at the Law School of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and special councillor to the French Council of State.

The law is inseparable from the construction of democracy to such an extent th

These foundational aspects of the State are crumbling. Threats leading to the State’s disintegration can be found in the existence of non-State legal orders obeying other legitimacies, the development of individualism and communalism, the deterioration of fundamental rights into moral tirades, the weakening of political power, the loss of the ‘public interest’ as an effective concept, and the challenges posed by radicalised political Islam. The 2017 presidential election in France presented a stark reminder of this situation. If liberal democracy, the West’s model of government, deserves to be saved, the jurisdiction of States should be clarified, and the people be given back the means to express themselves.

For more information on the book