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RésuméLa construction européenne crée de la démocratie au niveau supranational, tout en perturbant profondément le fonctionnement des démocraties nationales. Il reste donc à inventer les moyens de ressouder les deux niveaux : par des réformes institutionnelles certes, par une meilleure représentation des sociétés civiles, mais aussi par un profond changement des discours entretenus dans la plupart des grands pays européens sur la construction européenne elle-même – ceci, au premier chef, en France.

The EU, as a result of its very presence, has had a disruptive impact on the traditional workings of national democracy. The main problem, however, is not so much that the EU alters national governance practices as that national leaders have developed neither new ideas and discourse to legitimate the changes in practice nor new practices to reinvigorate national democracy. The article makes this case by answering three questions: 1) What is the EU? 2) How has the EU strengthened democracy at the supranational level? 3) Why and how has the EU weakened its member-states’ national democracies? It concludes with a fourth question: can we solve the problem of the weakening of national democracy by further strengthening EU democracy?