France is poised to shatter European complacency

France is poised to shatter European complacency - Telegraph Leader Comment
The Daily Telegraph

The big guns have fired their final salvo and fallen silent, awaiting tomorrow's verdict of the French people on the European constitution. President Jacques Chirac, part wheedling, part threatening, has reminded voters of their grave responsibility. One of his predecessors, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, yesterday used the occasion of German ratification of his brainchild to urge France to follow its neighbour's example. (But "Germany"did not ratify: it was the German Parliament, not the German people -CCComment)

On the other side of the political divide, the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose country overwhelmingly endorsed the constitution in February, last night addressed a Socialist rally in Lille.Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, did the same in Toulouse. Despitethese exhortations, the latest polls suggest that the French remain stubbornly sceptical and will vote Non by a much larger margin than they voted Oui for the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.

The electorate can be forgiven its suspicion of the constitution. It is averbose and opaque document open to a bewildering variety of interpretations Mr Chirac sees it as a defence against an "ultra-liberal" Europe. The Left attacks it as an Anglo-Saxon plot to introduce "free and unbridled competition". Nicolas Sarkozy, a potential presidential candidate for 2007, has suggested that a country vying to host the world at the Olympic Games in 2012 should not begin by saying No to Europe. Equally bizarrely, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-Right leader, has claimed that the constitution will place France "under the American protectorate of Nato".

As the flag-bearer for the constitution, Mr Chirac does not cut an impressive figure. In his television address on Thursday, he told viewers both that the referendum had nothing to do with the dismal performance of his government and hinted that he would make ministerial changes after tomorrow. His refusal to resign if things go against him indicates that he will seek a scapegoat for his miscalculation in calling for a vote on the constitution in the first place. Compare that with de Gaulle's decision to step down in 1969, so far the only occasion since the founding of the Fifth Republic that a head of state has lost a referendum.

Likewise, French men and women with a touch of Bastille bolshiness in their veins will not be impressed by the apparent determination of the European political elite to ignore the consequences of a No vote. Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, a European Commission spokesman, said yesterday that the referendums in France and Holland (due next Wednesday) were not simply national votes but concerned the future of the European Union, its global role and its political and economic prospects. "It is clear that all 25 governments and all the European institutions... remain united in the desireto see the constitution enter into force eventually," he added.

By their own words, they are condemned. Mr Dowgielewicz's attitude encapsulates the contempt for the nation state and the electorate felt by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. It is tempting to remind this arrogant official that the constitution was supposed to bring Europe closer to its peoples by narrowing the democratic deficit, and that the best way of doing this is to submit its terms to a popular vote. But his words suggest he is impervious to such arguments.

The French tomorrow and the Dutch on Wednesday threaten to shatter such complacency. Rejection by two founder members will be the biggest ever setback to the European "project" and will rock the ruling establishment in each country. We await the results with delicious expectancy.