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You know, it's mostly Europeans slaughtering each other and then slaughtering other people on other contintents. And then some, couple big ones last century...
The Great Idea of European union is not to forget her history, but to learn from history and try to free herself from repeating the same mistakes. Greece, Spain and Portugal had very bad human rights record before they joined EEC, having been military dictatorships only few years before joining.
History of Turkey is not dissimilar with many military coups, but the membership process has allready done a ton of good for human rights, minority rights, sexual equality, curbing the power of military etc. Still lot to do for Turkey. Now there are great hopes for Cyprus. After Cyprus, the biggest question for Turkey is to put army totally under civilian control, which is difficult but possible, and the Turkish governement of AKP is certainly willing to do that.
The biggest reason why France oppeses Turkey is the same reason she was not happy about the enlargment, is that Turkey is big, the same size as Germany, and thus will diminish French influence inside the Union, which France wants to be somekind of new Napoleonic empire of governable size. EU will not, it is and will be 'something else'.
Europe needs Russia's oil and gas, not much else, and more than that she needs to be not too dependent on Russia or anybody else. Seven new members have bad memories from Soviet Empire and don't think too kindly of Russia. EU - Russia relationships are now at low point, Russia want's to make a big bundle of all the open questions - Kyoto, WTO, visa, Kaliningrad etc. - and EU don't like that a bit.
Turkey will almost certainly get a date for opening negotiations this year, but it will be a long way, membership will depend on Turkey's progress and will happen only sometime next decade. Integration with EU has already started with customs union etc., it is gradual process where full membership is just one pole, and the process has been and will be beneficial for both Turkey and the rest of Europe.
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