This new supranational confederation would be administered in a consensual way by a class of enlightened bureaucrats, who shared the ideals of a union based on wealth redistribution and “social solidarity” (generous welfare provision). From this point of view – that is, from the perspective of those who felt first or second-order guilt (Germany and France respectively) over their country’s actions in the war – the fact of this administrator class not being elected to power was a virtue. It meant that they were untainted by the need to play to public opinion. Which brings us back to D-Day: it was striking the extent to which the countries that had undiluted pride in their wartime achievements – Britain and the United States – dwelt on the notion that they had been fighting for “democracy”. I lost count of the number of times Barack Obama used the words “freedom”, “liberty” and “democracy” in his speech in Normandy. (At one point he referred to this place having been “the beachhead of democracy”.)