All the while the official line remained that once a passport or visa was issued, then the country or continent’s latest arrival became as European as anyone else. And all the while that governments discussed the possible measures needed to encourage millions of people already in Europe to become Europeans, the minds of the European publics mulled over another idea – one ordinarily pushed to the very recesses of the public debate, but always capable of breaking out.

This was the fear that all of this was bogus and that if not all, then at least much of the existing plan was going to fail. It was a concern based on the thought that if integration were to happen then it would take a very long time – perhaps centuries – and that in any case it had certainly not happened yet in Europe. Here the everyday experience of Europeans is more important than any survey and the experience of their eyes is more important than official statistics from any government.

‘THE GREAT REPLACEMENT’

Any trip to thousands of locations across Europe can spark the fear of what the French writer and philosopher Renaud Camus has characterised as ‘Le Grand Remplacement’. Take the suburb of Saint-Denis on the northern outskirts of Paris. This is one of the central locations of French history and culture, named after the great Basilica Cathedral at its centre in which lie the relics of the third-century Bishop of Paris who is now the city’s patron saint. The present building, dating from the twelfth century, is also famous for another reason. From the sixth century onwards it was the necropolis of the French royal family. Their memorials, featuring elaborate likenesses in stone, include those of the Capetian dynasty, the Bourbons, the Medicis and the Merovingians. At the time of the French Revolution these tombs were desecrated, but today in the crypt lie the stark, marble tombs of the King and Queen that revolution overthrew: Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette.