Leadership Quote by Jean-Pierre Raffarin

“Obviously” does a lot of stage-managing here: Raffarin starts by conceding the fact everyone can see, then pivots to the claim he wants everyone to feel. The line is classic European-integration rhetoric, but with a distinctly political operator’s touch. Diversity isn’t presented as a headache to manage; it’s rebranded as the raw material of legitimacy. Europe, he implies, isn’t a nation pretending to be one. It’s an agreement to keep arguing inside a shared framework rather than outside it.

The phrasing “a union of diversity” is carefully circular, almost tautological, and that’s the point. It turns “diversity” from an obstacle into a definition. If Europe is, by nature, plural, then complaints about clashing languages, economies, and histories become less like proof of failure and more like proof the project is working as designed. It’s a rhetorical judo move aimed at skeptics: you don’t get to call Europe incoherent when incoherence is part of its architecture.

The context is the long shadow of EU enlargement and deepening integration: debates over sovereignty, the euro, migration, and the perpetual question of whether Brussels can command emotional loyalty. Raffarin’s subtext is defensive but aspirational. He’s selling a paradox as a brand: unity without uniformity. And he’s quietly insisting that Europe’s strength isn’t consensus; it’s the institutionalization of disagreement, turned into a shared identity before it can become a breakup.