The French and the EU Constitution

You must know by now that France appears poised to reject the proposed EU constitution. For background see here. Nearly all of the coverage seems to be focused on the consequences of such a rejection. I’ve been trying to ferret out why the majority of French voters are currently set to nix the constitution. Explanations I’ve read include anti-Anglo-Saxon sentiment, anti-Polish sentiment, and that French pols haven’t sold the constitution hard enough. None of these explanations really give me that warm feeling, though. Anybody have any good thoughts on this? Why don’t the French people like the EU constitution? They seem to me to be the big winners from a strong EU.

2 comments… add one
  • Outlaw3 Link

    Hard to say without reading the French papers and listening to the people in the cafes. From my time there (a while back so not very current), the EU takes away from French nationalism. They might be in charge – which could be a major selling point – but the rest of Europe won’t bow to France as an empire ruler, just one of equal nations.

  • E Baert Link

    Originally, when the EEC was formed, France was clearly in the lead : Germany had just lost the war and was demoralized, Italy could never lead Europe and the other 3, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were too small. Add to that that Belgium is a de facto satellite of France in many ways, and you can see why the French agreed to have the European Commission have Brussels as its seat, where French was the lingua franca

    Now over time more countries have joined, who were better able to stand up to France and, as protestant countries, do not share the typical French aversion to free enterprise, transparency and meritrocracy. The key one was Britain. The Gaulle was right in many ways when he blocked Britain’s membership first time round : Britain was the one country that could lead a coalition within the EU against France, and Britain has a completely different view of what the EU is there for. For France the EU was just a tool to remain a big player in international politics as long as the French ran the show in Brussels. For the Brits the EU is there to open internal markets.

    Hoewever, successive British PM’s were so hostile to Continental Europeans, that they could never be a leader of a coalition of other European countries. All that changed with Tony Blair, who also wants the EU to focus on markets, but who is not a little Englander.

    Then 2 years ago, in the run-up to Operation Iraqi freedom, Europe split down the middle. Blair led a coalition of New Europe againstFrance and its allies. Chirac did not know what had hit him : for the first time ever, a majority of EU countries had found the courage to say no to France, which used to see the EU as just a useful extension of French policies. Chirac blurted that the Poles had lost a good opportunity to shut up.

    In the meanwhile, the new EU members are following free market policies which Thatcher would have liked and gang up with Britain against France. And to make matters worse, none of these new Europeans speak French : they like Anglo saxon culture.

    Suddenly, in the space of just a few years, the EU has become a Frankenstein monster for France : it has turned on its creator.

    However, the French will do free markets a service by voting NON in May. It will stop any further political and tax integration of the EU, which will allow the countries with free markets to do even better and France and Germany to sink even deeper. In the end I think we will see a central core of France, Spain, Belgium,Luxembourg (maybe Italy, after Berlusconi has gone, hopefully not Germany, after Schroeder has gone) who seek closer political integration and raise red tape and taxes to the highest common denominator, whilst all the rest will trade freely and grow.

    Just my opinion

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