Dear David…

Dear David Cameron,

first of all, let me apo­lo­gize for my English. As you know, we French­men have ter­rible lan­guage abi­li­ties, but this is an effort I want to make since I real­ly want to get you to unders­tand me.

Because it is, indeed, very impor­tant mat­ters that I want to express tonight.

Accor­ding to an article by Der Spie­gel, you said that having Jean-Claude Jun­cker as head of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion  would “des­ta­bi­lise [your] govern­ment to such a point that it would bring for­ward a refe­ren­dum on whe­ther to exit the EU”, threa­te­ning the very par­ti­ci­pa­tion of Uni­ted King­dom in the Euro­pean Union.

Well, basi­cal­ly, this is bla­ck­mail, and I was always told that bla­ck­mail is bad. But you are a bit too old for that kind of lec­ture, so I will go straight to the rea­son why this time, it is without any doubt some­thing you should be asha­med of.

Before the recent Euro­pean elec­tions, a pro­mise was made. Each Euro­pean par­ty had one can­di­date, who was to become head of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, should this par­ty get a majo­ri­ty in the Euro­pean Parliament.

Aside from the struggle bet­ween S&D, EPP, ALDE and the Greens, there also was a much more easier to unders­tand fight bet­ween Mar­tin Shulz,  Jean-Claude Jun­cker, Guy Verhof­stadt and Ska Keller.

Now, as you know, the EPP won this elec­tion. Maybe you are unhap­py with this; I unders­tand that, as a mem­ber of Conser­va­tive par­ty and, the­re­fore, mem­ber of the ECR group (which was the only big group not having a can­di­date for Euro­pean Com­mis­sion), you are disap­poin­ted to see a less conser­va­tive and more fede­ra­list par­ty win the elec­tion. But you know what? This is how demo­cra­cy works: the peo­ple’s choice is not always your per­so­nal favou­rite. I voted for a Green list and I have strong left-sided convic­tions, so I might hate EPP more that you do; and yet, I ack­now­ledge EPP vic­to­ry means Jun­cker should be our next pre­sident of the Commission.

Your war­ning that, in that case, you might trig­ger UK brea­king up with Euro­pean Union, shows two things: first, that you are a bad loser, which is real­ly up to you and I won’t argue with; second, that you don’t give a shit about demo­cra­cy, which is a very big pro­blem for a head of a demo­cra­tic State.

Let me be very clear: the Euro­pean people cal­led for an EPP-led Par­lia­ment assu­ming this would mean a Jun­cker-led Com­mis­sion. And honest­ly, this is good, because given the results in France, we need a strong recall that there are people who believe that Euro­pean Union is more than a mere alliance of coun­tries — and though I stron­gly disa­gree with Jun­cker in about eve­ry­thing eco­no­mics, I think it is a good thing a true fede­ra­list comes for­ward to streng­then the Union.

If you manage to put ano­ther can­di­date for­ward and have him denied his vic­to­ry, then you will deny the Euro­pean people the pre­sident they chose. You will shit on eve­ry­thing any Repu­bli­can believe in, you will choose the tribe before the nation and the fami­ly before the tribe, you will des­troy the faith we have in buil­ding big­ger and big­ger unions.

What will I say, tomor­row, to the people I told these past weeks: “Euro­pean elec­tions are impor­tant, this year more than ever, since for the first time we can have a direct input on both Par­lia­ment and Com­mis­sion”, if the one that was elec­ted does not become pre­sident of the Euro­pean Commission?

Oh, wait: I know. I shall tell them some­thing like: “you were right, they scre­wed us once more. What they want is no demo­cra­cy, and I shall never be this stu­pid again that I gave them any faith and trust.”

And you will not have lost just one more elec­tor; you will have lost one of the people who still argued that Euro­pean Union is some­thing important.

So that’s it, dear David: Jean-Claude Jun­cker is the natu­ral, people-cho­sen, win­ner for the pre­si­den­cy of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion. Deal with it.

Other­wise, what you will do is far more serious than just being a bad loser: it will be no less than shit­ting on demo­cra­cy itself and, in the pro­cess, des­troying a bit more hope for the Euro­pean Union citizens.