"Don't be afraid" (of the big, bad constitution)

Last Thursday evening there was a debate on TF1 about the EU Constitution. It was President Jacques Chirac going up against a hundred or so young people. I was at my singing rehearsal, so unfortunately I didn’t see it, but the next morning on every radio station I tuned in to – one at home, one in the car, and one in my office – they were talking about it. From what I heard, the hundred weren’t convinced. So the likelihood is the millions watching weren’t either. Meanwhile, the survey machine has churned out more indications that the “no” vote is solidifying. It’s now at about 56% of voting intentions, and the referendum is only a month and a half away.

Both on an off the TF1 show, people opposed to the constitution seem to be opposed to it because they don’t like the direction Europe is taking. They don’t like what they view as the EU’s leanings towards a deregulated, unfettered, free market (libéralisme). Chirac maintains that the constitution, by virtue of the values written into it, is a bulwark against the unfettered “Anglo-Saxon” style free market. They’re against current trends such as globalization and delocalisation. A young lawyer brought up an interesting example, saying that her law degree and qualifications are not recognized in other European countries yet many other services are freely available here in France. So Europe remains a barrier for her. The president was apparently caught unawares on this and other issues raised.

I’m afraid my reading of the constitution hasn’t progressed much since my previous post on the subject, so I can’t really give you an informed opinion on that one. But the debate does seem to confirm what a French politician (sorry, can’t remember who it was!) recently said on France Info, that people who vote “no” on the constitution because they don’t like the direction the EU is taking will get the EU in its current state, with all its faults.

One thing I do know, from reading the daily series of articles appearing in Les Echos on the subject (subscription required), is that the constitution has a declaration of values including for example, “equality between men and women”. Rather than facilitating the entry of countries having trouble accepting such arcane principles, clauses such as these would seem to raise the bar on them (I’m thinking of a hypothetical example of a country straddling Europe and Asia that is demographically and culturally very different from the current European Union members).

President Chirac chalked it all up to pessimism. His message was “Don’t be afraid” (“N’ayez pas peur”). He even said that in the US young people are fundamentally optimistic whereas in France they are fundamentally pessimistic. Any comments on that one?

Anyway, nice message, but a wee bit late. He should have started putting it out, say a year ago. If the Bush administration’s tactics are anything to go by, if you drumbeat a message for long enough, people will believe it.

The French government would be having an easier time of it if there were less infighting. The strutting Nicolas Sarkozy, head of the right-wing UMP party currently in power (Chirac’s) is already jockeying for position in the 2007 presidential election. He didn’t watch Thursday’s debate because he was at some party meeting denouncing the current direction of French society. But he says he taped it and promises to watch it. Maybe I should give him a call so we can watch it together.