An April 2012 survey by IFOP, a pollster, found that only 22% of French people thought globalisation a "good thing" for their country.However, economic historians reckon the question of whether the benefits of globalisation outweigh the downsides is more complicated than this.
But prior to Nick Clegg's positive championing of Europe in his recent debates with Farage, no leader had sought to expose the vacuity of Farage's easy answers to the complex questions of globalisation and migration.
The question of how to render democratic engagement viable at the national level within the context of neoliberal globalisation has been a key question for some time.
Secondly, managing globalisation is about the rise of new challenges which are intrinsically global: take the question of global warming and energy security as an example.
The challenge is to maximise the benefits and minimise the harm of globalisation, keeping the questions of human rights and equity firmly in view.
The students have been specifically chosen because of their concern and commitment for the questions of our future under the impact of globalisation, population growth and pollution threats.
One Nation's leader, Pauline Hanson, used her maiden Senate speech this month to question the value of globalisation and call for a halt to "further immigration", warning that Australia was in danger of being swamped by Muslims.
Trump's protectionist, isolationist stance brought into question the inevitability of globalisation, suggesting a return to a pre-1939 age of economic nationalism, punitive tariffs, trade barriers, controls on movement of labour and capital, closed markets and minds.
So here we are: in the age of globalisation, the question "what is English?" may be an impertinent one to some, but of burning relevance to others.
The biggest question of all: Can globalisation even be repudiated?
