Louise Weiss greeting Simone Veil upon her election as President of the European Parliament ., July 1979 | © European Parliament
the many political lists , which either took a pro- or anti-Europe stance . In a statement to Le Monde , Valéry Giscard d ’ Estaing explained that those elections were to be an opportunity to decide how France would be represented externally and not how it would be divided internally 12 . The European dimension of the elections was less diluted in 1979 than in later years because of the views of two parties , the RPR and the French Communist Party ( PCF ), who challenged the very legitimacy of the vote . Europe was evidently not a central concern for French people , since ‘ only 25 % of respondents declared that they had voted according to the decisions taken by the parties on the construction of Europe , while 59 % stated that they had voted according to the challenges that France faced in
12 . Le Monde , 17 May 1979 .
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