Friends, yes, but no longer family
Britain’s vote to exit EU shakes a globalized generation’s identity
PARIS — You could say theirs is the Generation of Three E’s.
There is Erasmus, the European Union program that organizes and subsidizes student exchanges among universities across its 28 countries and elsewhere. There is easy-Jet, the budget airline that lets them hop between European cities as simply and cheaply as it can be to trek across town. And there is the euro, the currency used in most of the member countries.
Young adults are now grappling with what Britain’s vote to exit the European Union means for their profoundly European way of life. For them, it is perfectly normal to grow up in one country, study in another, work in a third, share a flat with people who have different passports and partner up without regard to nationality.
“It means that we are not going to be sisters and brothers of a big project,” said Antoine Guéry, 24, a Frenchman whose résumé and network of friends provide a crash course in European geography.
“At best, we are going to be allies” — friends, but no longer family. “It feels less like home.”
Guéry works at a publicrelations firm in Paris but had been looking for job opportunities in London — an exercise he shelved immediately after the“Br exit” vote June 23. His degree is from Sciences Po University in Paris, but he also studied at Stockholm University and Germany’s University of Potsdam. Unified sense of fate
It was in Stockholm that two German women, Carolina Leersch, now 26, and Kim Seele, 28, joined his inner circle. In Berlin, Guéry lived with Seele’s aunt, had an Irish boyfriend and befriended Lauren Muscroft, who is British, and Marion Desbles, who is from Rennes, France.
This group and others like it are, to be sure, a subset within a subset, part of a fourth E — the elite — who studied at the Continent’s top institutions and took advantage of the Pan-European doors open to them. Splitting Britain from the European Union may put a damper on future changes important to this globalized generation, like the move toward a single European digital market for movie and music streaming, and the end, by next year, of cellphone roaming charges when crossing European Union borders.
Days before the British referendum, Guéry, Muscroft and Desbles jokingly wondered, while waiting in the passport lines at the airport in Barcelona, Spain, whether Britons like Muscroft would soon be kicked out of the European Union lane.
Now, the friends are wondering whether their children will be able to benefit from Erasmus as they did. If their European health insurance cards will still cover them in Britain. Whether France might soon follow with a “Frexit” vote, the Netherlands with a “Nexit,” and whoknows what else?
“My initial reaction when it happened was feeling like part of my identity had been stripped away,” said Muscroft, 24, who works in London for an online food-ordering site. “One thing I’ve always really felt a strong connection to, with Europe, is a unified sense of fate — the fact that we are all in this together, and that we benefit each other through this union.” Time for reform?
It is still unclear what kind of relationship Britain will negotiate with the European Union, but trade is unlikely to screech to a halt and short-term travelers are not likely to face stringent visa requirements. As for the union’s Erasmus program — in which Britain ranked fifth two years ago for students sent abroad and fourth for foreign students taken in — nonmembers like Iceland, Norway and Turkey are allowed to participate. Until Britain officially leaves the union, the program will continue there, too.
Even this staunchly pro-European group knows the union is far from perfect. (“Stop voting on stupid things like olive oil labeling, and answer the need for security and immigration policy,” Guéry said.) The friends hope Britain’s departure will push the institution to reform itself, but there also are concerns that it will fuel political extremes at home.
“What I’m most worried about is how Marine Le Pen and other leaders at the National Front are using these kinds of debates for their own political purposes,” said Desbles, a 25-year-old teacher, referring to the farright party and its leader, who favor a similar breakaway for France.
Guéry has been thinking about his grandparents and great-grandparents, who bore the brunt of both world wars.
“So much of my family suffered from the stupidity of nationalism,” he said. “I can’t imagine my continent going back 50 years.”