La perception du centre de gravité de l’Europe, reflet de la réalité ou expression d’une volonté d’élargissement ?

• Published in: L'espace politique Vol. 19
• Main Author: Bahoken, Françoise
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne 08-04-2013; Université de Reims Champagne-Ardennes
• Subjects: barycentre; Cameroon; European union; France; mental maps; students; Cameroon; mental maps; students; analyse centrographique; European union; Union européenne; centrographic analysis; centre de gravité; cartes mentales; barycentre; Cameroun; France; étudiants
• ISSN: 1958-5500
• DOI: 10.4000/espacepolitique.2602

We propose here an alternative and innovative analysis of the perception of the European Union (EU) influence in the world apprehended from its geographical center point. The analysis is derived from the european perimeters freehand drawn by students in Politics (SPO) and in Engineering Sciences (SPI) that reside within the EU-27, in France and outside, in Cameroon. Our main objective is to test the hypothesis that students surveyed in SPO, unlike SPI and regardless of their place of residence (in and out Europe), have a mental perception of the location of the european geometric mid-point (i.e. the barycentre) closer to the one calculated by the french National Institute for Geographic and Forestry Information (IGN). For doing that, we carried out a centrographic analysis of cameroonian and french students' mid-points derived from their mental maps (i.e. their handmade european perimeters). Our results revealed two significant lessons. The first one is the spatial proximity of the results for the two groups of students that reveals a systematic shift of that mid-point toward the east. This shift reflects a good knowledge of world geopolitical matters, especially in European geopolitical facts. The second result, which follows from the first one, concerns the surveyed students' perception of the european perimeter extension : SPO students surveyed in Cameroon seems to have incorporated the idea of an effective enlargement of the EU toward the east and the south while the same students surveyed in France have a perception of this extension rather oriented to the north. These morphological different views of an enlarged Europe probably witnessed important bilateral exchanges, they probably also reflect the need to integrate countries that are located in the neighborhood of the EU-27 current administrative boundaries.