This morning, I addressed the French equivalent of the CBI (the MEDEF) in Paris - only 85 minutes from Brussels thanks to the High Speed Train (TGV).

I enjoy telling French audiences how France is the real problem country in Europe (why would anyone think it was Britain?), not just because they rejected the Constitutional Treaty but because they have one of the poorest records of applying European law, they ignored the stablity pact on macro-economic policy, they are overly protectionist, they oblige the European Parliament to shift from Brussels to Strasbourg for four days per month, and they have been extremely reticent about accepting new countries into our Union.

This is not new: the French only approved the EEC treaty by a narrow majority, rejected the EDC treaty, and even boycotted all EU Council meetings for a while when they weren't getting their way in the 1960s. They held up British membership for ten years and blocked the start of elections to the Eurpean Parliament for twenty. I could go on...

Indeed, CIVITAS, a British think-tank, has done precisely that with a new publication called "How France Has Undermined The European Project" and its accompanying press release entitled "EU would work better without France".

Interestingly, far from being provoked, the audience seemed to largely agree with my point. France is going through a period of soul-searcing on its attitude to Europe, having to get used to the fact that it is far from playing the leading role as it once did, but unsure how to react. Above all, the French are unsure about what it is that they disliked about the Constitutional Treaty, with some having opposed it because it was too "liberal", others because it was too "social", some because it was too integrationist, but more because it was too limitative of integration ("too British"), some through opposition to other European matters such as Turkish accession or the services directive ("the context not the text") and many through simple opposition to Chirac and the government. How will France be able to identify the points it might like to address in revisiting the Constitutional Treaty? What will its future attitude to Europe be?