Europe's cross-border politics

By Tim Franks BBC Europe correspondent

Ari Vatanen is a world rally champion and he has also been a member of the European Parliament for the last five years.

Ari Vatanen (right) brings colour to France's leading conservative group

Now he is campaigning for re-election, not in his native Finland but in Lille, the second city of France.

We are at one of the morning markets and the traders are coming around the front of their stalls to pay homage to the man known across the world as the "Flying Finn".

Ari Vatanen is a hero to many sports fans in France and he has also for years had a house in the south of the country.

But does that, I ask him over a croissant and a coffee in the local café, qualify him to speak on behalf of the people of France?

Mr Vatanen wants to take people out of their political "rut".

"We envision the world as a nation-based world when we should start visioning the world as a human family because otherwise there are cracks and bumps around," he says.

Green field

Ari Vatanen has a very good chance of being elected - he is second on the list in this region for the governing UMP party.

Some of the parties have an almost religious view of the EU - that... you couldn't have anything that they call Europe without the EU Jean Thierry Danish Greens

He is just one member of the European parliament.

Now in these elections, for the first time, an entire party is trying to take its identity to a new European level.

The Greens have set themselves up, not just for the common manifesto, but as a single pan-European party.

For many it makes sense as environmental issues tend to transcend national boundaries.

But some still demur, among them the Danish Greens.

They believe that the European Union has only made the dream of sustainable development more distant.

Jean Thierry, a spokesman for the Danish Greens, believes his colleagues in Europe have sold their soul to a damaging institution.

"Some of the parties," he says, "have an almost religious view of the EU - that it is the goal of everything and is the means of everything, that it is life and you couldn't have anything that they call Europe without the EU."

Beyond the blocks

Politely but firmly, leading Belgian Green MEP Pierre Joncier, says: "Grow up".

"When you are a political party the difference is that you have to try to achieve some political majority in the European parliament," he says.

"That means obviously that you have to have some compromise on all the issues."

Other parties sit in blocs in the parliament; the British Labour Party, for example, in with the European Socialists, the British Conservatives with the European People's Party / European Democrats.

But the discipline is fairly loose.

For the time being, the Greens remain the exception, like Ari Vatanen in France - the former rally driver who remains away from the pack.