Being a European

I only know of a couple of people who have moved to France or other continental countries.

On the other hand, nearly every other person I know or chat to seems to have a son or daughter living in Australia, New Zealand, Canada or China. Mainly Australia.

If, like DBH, you work in a private school where half the teachers live in, they all have houses in France because they were cheaper to buy as a main house to have holidays in. I think they all thought they would be able to buy a house in the UK upon retirement, but it hasn't worked quite like that. So we know many, many ex-teachers who have either already retired to France or who are going to. And not all of them are all that happy about it, but know that they won't earn enough from holiday rentals, and would be very lucky indeed if they managed to get a decent sale at the moment. I hope it works out for them. I do have a couple of friends who have lived there for decades and will never return to the UK, their children have married French partners and their grandchildren are firmly French. They do get a bit wistful, but on the whole I would say that they are both very happy to be Europeans rather than English or British - and one of them is Welsh so that is saying something!

Ana
Just to be clear, my OP was about celebrating European union in the broadest sense and hoping that it would not be swept away by an outbreak of nationalism and separatism.
I have never doubted the need for reform of some of the EU's policies and institutions, but I think that the "big idea" of unity is still a good one that we should seek to preserve from within.
Of course we are geographically in Europe; I was talking more of mind and spirit. As papaoscar said, the war graves are a reminder of a time when Europe was not united.

Thank you, Mamie, that's made it clear.