In his stimulating recent post ‘France and the New Balance of power’, Oxford’s Geoffrey Gertz argues that the near-certain election of Francois Hollande will change the balance between ‘North’ and ‘South’ in Europe. Having for so long reckoned herself part of the German, Dutch, Scandinavian and Eastern European ‘North’, he suggests, France will now join Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and possibly Bulgaria and Hungary in the ‘South’. He may well be right: Hollande’s recent demands that the stability pact be renegotiated, that Germany would have to push for growth as well as balanced budgets and the whole tenor of his campaign is evidence enough. I wonder, though, whether a Hollande victory might not also have profound consequences for relations between …