Interview. Originally medieval, he became one of the greatest historians of Nazism. He is notably responsible for a reference biography of Hitler in two volumes (Flammarion 1999 and 2000). Today, Ian Kershaw publishes the second volume of his great history from Europe to the XXe century: The Global Age. Europe, from 1950 to the present day, (Threshold, 752 p., 26 euros). Following Europe in hell. 1914-1949, (Seuil, 2016), this new work traces the renaissance of the Old Continent, from the post-war period from 1950 to the present day.
How do you feel about the UK's departure from the European Union (EU)?
Despite the "Leave" victory in the June 2016 referendum, I wanted to believe that Brexit would not materialize. The British being fundamentally pragmatic, I wrongly believed that they would see that the dangers of leaving the EU are much greater than the disadvantages of staying there.
Like many people around me, I did not understand that the issue of identity took precedence over everything else, including economic and personal interests. Europe had been an open wound in British political life for more than two decades, and the United Kingdom the most turbulent member of the EU, but still in 2004 a majority of the population remained in favor of maintaining it.
How do you explain the speed of this changeover?
We can draw a straight line from the 2008 financial crisis to Brexit, through the austerity policy that greatly affected the standard of living of the British, then the shock of the refugee crisis.
It was then that the supporters of the departure from the EU launched their slogan "Take back control" : a simple and strong message that was not only negative. Voters have long believed that the country should be able to contain immigration and that successive governments have failed to do so. The target is people from EU countries, especially from the East.
This attitude was further hardened after German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the doors of the EU to more than 1 million refugees from the Middle East between 2015 and 2016. The “Leave” campaign played on the fear. It was easy to say that the security of the country was at stake by pretending that jihadists were hiding among them. In addition, opposite, there was no slogan as effective. The fact that the Remain camp never sought to show the advantages of remaining within the Twenty-Eight is an indicator of the low esteem in which many of its supporters held the EU.
