– Abstract
The European issue, who may have been expected to dominate debates in the presidential campaign, eventually turned out to be just a matter of lesser importance. The reasons for Europe’s political evanescence in debates should be sought particularly in the absence of a common candidate against the European Constitution’s opponents or in the campaign’s deliberate focus on security and immigration issues. Most of all, the main candidates have all adopted, in various degrees, some kind of « Plan B Euroscepticism », a hypocritical and populist critic of the contemporary building of Europe, so as not to lose those voters who had decided against the European Constitution.
