Quelle Méditerranée arabe ? Entre l'islam et le marché, de nouveaux avatars de la capture de l'État

Which Arabic Mediterranean ?
In November of 1995 the first EUROMED Forum was held, with the stated objective of re-establishing closer cooperation among countries on the two sides of the Mediterranean. The economic aspect was to be the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean open market before 2000 ; on the socio-political level it was to be the beginning a new era in relations which have been rich as well as tumultuous.
Two years later the process seems hardly to have moved, as each side eyes the other with distrust. On the European side, distrust is fed by the fear of an internal explosion in countries of the South ; on their side it is fueled by suspicion of hegemonic ambitions by the West.
How can distrust be overcome when failure of the Middle-East peace process and the Algerian drama gives the North more reasons for fear than for hope ? One way for sure is through better understanding of the unity and diversity of the vast Islamic region.
Such is the spirit in which Roland Palou gives us a brief analysis of major socio-political trends in the Arabic countries. These countries, in his view, are marked by relative political stability co-existing with a permament tension between tradition and modernity. He cautions us, however, that this tension is not always synonymous with the tension between religious fundamentalism and occidental modernism.