To Be In Florence Is To Reflect

Canadians Tend To Be A Bit More Religious Than Most Europeans - Though Not More Than The Poles Or Ukrainians. Most Important, Their Attitude To Immigration And Ethnic Minorities Is More Positive Than That Of Most Europeans.

There Is Already A Generation Of European Graduates Who Feel They Have Been Robbed Of The Better Future They Were Led To Expect. They Are Members Of A New Class: The Precariat.

As One Looks Back, One Sees That The Fall Of The Berlin Wall Opened The Door To Three Developments - The Eurozone, Which Was Crafted Around German Unification, The Free Movement Of Peoples Within Europe, Particularly People From The New Democracies Of Eastern Europe, And, More Broadly, It Opened The Door To Globalization.

Facts Are Subversive. Subversive Of The Claims Made By Democratically Elected Leaders As Well As Dictators, By Biographers And Autobiographers, Spies And Heroes, Torturers And Post-modernists. Subversive Of Lies, Half-truths, Myths; Of All Those "easy Speeches That Comfort Cruel Men.

So What Were Europeans Telling Their Leaders? The General Message Was Perfectly Summed Up By The Cartoonist Chappatte, Who Drew A Group Of Protesters Holding Up A Placard Shouting "unhappy" - And One Of Their Number Shouting Through A Megaphone Into The Ballot Box. There Are 28 Member States And 28 Varieties Of Unhappy.