DF,
Of course, the EU experiment was never meant to be a "super state".
It was always the sow eating its litter.
After failing to colonize the third-world, France looked to her colonization of Europe as a more congenial adverture. The big important European state colonizing the smaller European states in exchange for a little "rayonnement de gloire française" by association.
Having France largely in charge of the EU experiment is as deleterious for Europe as was last century's fond notion that she stood guarantor for continental security.
And as when the sow eats her own, what is not remade as shit, is fated to be remade as sausage.
Regards,
DGB