Shared value are part of what is needed to make up a society. Continuing a society certainly implies the establishment of collective institutions and norms but they would have little political, social, or moral legitimacy if they were not based on shared values. To take this inot account, it is necessary to focus on the actors and their reasons; for example it is clear that there is no democracy in a country with no democrats. If we examine the social foundations of Europe in this way while allowing that it is not society like, say, the Uneted States, we can ask ourselves if Europe actually amounts to a society, or at least on its way to becoming one. In other words, is what Henri Mendras (1997) calls 'the Europeans' Europe' a reality or not? [First paragraph]