French Reject European Constitution

In a stunning reversal of roles, France went from champion of European integration to staunch defender of French nationalism. By Stewart Nusbaumer

France soundly rejected Europe's first proposed constitution and threw the breaks on the further integration of Europe, sending conservative globalists and liberal internationalists into a near panic.

In a national referendum on Sunday, 57 percent of French voters rejected the constitution while only 43 percent supported the proposal.

The product of more than two years of negotiations and signed by European Union leaders in Rome in October, the constitution was designed to make decision-making easier among 25 countries in the bloc, while laying the foundation for a European president and foreign minister, and creating an even more powerful Parliament. In short, the constitution was designed to create something akin to United States of Europe.

Since the European Union's constitution cannot go into force without the backing of all member states, and the French government has been one of the main pillars for greater European integration, the momentum for a more centralized Europe has suddenly been stopped.

According to commentators in France, there are three major reasons for the defeat of the European constitution. First, a majority of French felt that Brussels -- the seat of the European community -- was pushing an "Anglo-Saxon" economic model onto them, which is a system that relies more upon markets and less upon government intervention. Second, there are concerns about Muslim Turkey's entrance into the European Union, which is unpopular in France where a large Muslim minority is not integrated into society and is viewed with suspicion. Finally, with unemployment running at 10 percent in France, voters were turned off by a European constitution that gave national leaders less control over their economy.

But there is more to France's rejection of the European constitution.

The Nationalist Factor

Few words carry a lower reputation in the vernacular of the modern than "nationalism." It is attacked as the cause of every evil known on this planet, from war to famine to genocide to environmental destruction to narrow mindedness to vile racism to.... Nationalists are slammed as agents of a brutal history, and slandered as reactionaries who are hostile to the very notion of progress.

With nationalism blatantly horrible, it is seldom discussed, just attacked, and then quickly dismissed. European bureaucrats, tucked away in offices in far-off Brussels and feeling confident that the "scourge of Europe" was dead forever, never imagined (until it was too late) that the French tribe would actually vote for nationalism.

In fact, nationalism is far from dead. And it is far from pure evil, being the souce of much good.

In a world that is increasingly elite-driven, with ethnic diversity shrinking and global uniformity more common, with the sense of alienation on the rise and community identity shrinking, the nation state is still looked upon by most people of the world as the best system of government. It is home to most legislation that protects individuals and the environment. It is what people feel the safest with, and it is what they give their greatest loyalty to, after family and friends. Like most people, the French are leery of jumping on the transnational dream.

For some time, Europe -- with France taking a leading role -- has been in the vanguard for greater regionalization, if not with the United States or the New World Order, both of which seek to weaken nation states to enhance the unrestricted flow of capital and labor across national borders. The introduction of the Euro to replace national currencies was considered a major step forward. The coordination of immigration and border control was viewed as a positive act to weaken national sovereignty. And the enactment of the constitution was to be a crowning achievement for the centralization of European power.

The French rejection of the constitution has muddled if not killed (at least for now) the demolition of the European nation state. The referendum's results are not, however, a statement for isolationism, although that will be the spin put out by the elite. The results are a demand for moderation, to take the political evolution of the transnational slower. But globalists who arrogantly predicted their world-without-borders would soon be realized and internationalists who smugly dismissed nationalists as a legacy of the cave man, they do have something new to worry about. And that is, if they continue to push too hard and too fast with few if any benefits for common people, then their "modern" world could become history in the 21st century.