The european young like being european ... my evidence for this entirely anecdotal - we get a lot of tourists out here on the canadian left coast, some of us are involved with a multicultural centre and through that a youth hostel, we get called out for emergencies and special events and translation etc, so we meet a lot of 19-25 year old europeans among others ... one of the questions i often ask is 'how do you like having a european passport?' [as opposed to a danish/irish/whatever passport] ... actually i always ask this, the question in light of the continent's history fascinates me ..... the answer is invariably - 'yes i like it very much, it's quite practical you know, we can go from Cádiz to Rostock and it is all one', or something like that ... then, almost as invariably - 'there are more of us than there are of you in North America, you know'
Whether this means they'll make a long-term go of the euro, hard to say ... but i suspect so ... there is a definite change in attitude from people i've known in the past, for instance a frenchman born probably 1938 or so, when in the 1980s he was issued a red euro passport instead of the [blue?] french one, it rocked his world, he didn't like it one bit, complained at great length and did in fact use the epithet 'boche' [which is why i ask all europeos that question now, really] |
