The question that most troubles French people about the 29th May referendum on the European constitution is whether it embodies the French vision of Europe. In the aftermath of the second world war, the French fifth republic and the new Europe were conceived simultaneously and along parallel lines. France, reconstructing its own political and administrative institutions, imagined and created with the same breath what became Europe's. France dominated the content as well as the form of European politics. "The major initiatives," as Larry Siedentop has written in Democracy in Europe (2002), "from Schuman's plan for a coal and steel community, through the common agricultural policy to the single currency—have been French and have served French interests… French and European interests have become categorically fused." This has meant that whereas a British prime minister faced with a European project he or she does not like might look for an opt-out, the French president picks up the phone and tells the president of the commission that the proposed legislation is "unacceptable" to France. Jacques Chirac did just this over the stability pact and again in March over the Frits Bolkestein services directive.
But the French realise—many of them with regret—that such behaviour is now the exception. Enlargement, the re-emergence of British power, the spread of the English language and the strength of liberal market thinking in Brussels have eroded French hegemony. The Franco-German stand against the Iraq war was impressive in its way, but in the past one would have expected most other EU states to follow their lead. In retrospect it may be seen as the end of an era rather than the beginning. A year later, Franco-Germany could not impose its candidate, Guy Verhofstadt, as president of the commission.
But for many in France, the realities of waning influence have not yet sunk in: Europe is still written in French, as campaign leaders remind them daily. The current battle cry, "modèle social européen," illustrates how deeply France and Europe are still fused in the French mind. The French see the social model as Europe's landmark, the antidote to free-market savagery. It has become the pivot of the referendum campaigns. The difference between a "yes" and a "no" vote depends largely on whether you believe the constitution will enhance the social model or destroy it. What the rhetoric wrongly assumes, however, is that there is some European social model to enhance or destroy: in fact the union has no unified policy for employee protection, unemployment benefit, healthcare or pensions. There are at least four models: the continental, the Anglo-Saxon, the Scandinavian and the Mediterranean. While the constitution advocates a "social market economy" with "social justice and protection," while it "respects the entitlement to social security benefits," encouraging "co-operation between member states… in matters relating to social security," it does not insist on cross-EU social legislation or even on harmonisation.
Fear is driving both campaigns. Fear of Bolkestein's directive to open up the service sector to more cross-EU competition; fear of Turkey and all it stands for; fear of losing l'exception française. Fear because France is in such a sorry state, with its sluggish economy and 10 per cent unemployment rate. Some blame Europe for this; others believe Europe to be their only salvation.
But there are other, more political, reasons for the strong early showing of the no camp. From the beginning, France's leaders, both left and right, not only assumed that their electorate would vote yes—Europe being a French creation and the constitution drafted under the presidency of an eminent Frenchman—but also made it clear that voting no was morally wrong. This moral superiority of the yes camp annoys many. Chirac said that voting no would be "une connerie" (idiotic mistake): this handed the no camp a perfect slogan: "we're fed up with being treated like cons"—politely, like idiots. Thus the no vote has become the delinquent vote and has allowed people to rediscover the joys of revolt. The Socialist party, also supporting the constitution, compounded Chirac's error by threatening to punish any of its MPs who campaigned against—a sure way of turning people against them, especially because voting yes means voting Chirac. In 2002, Socialists felt their voice was taken from them in the second round of the presidential elections because they either had to vote Chirac or risk letting in Le Pen. Only three years later they are again being told by their leader to vote Chirac and they don't like it.
A recent convert to Europe, Chirac is unconvincing as a Euro-enthusiast, and he never wanted this referendum. Things went wrong as soon as he announced it last July: when Claudie Haigneré, his minister for European affairs, began expressing her opinion, Chirac realised she was a "casting error." Then Hervé Gaymard, his squeaky-clean new finance minister, seen as his heir, behaved with casual ineptitude, assuming his new position gave him the right to spend large amounts of taxpayers' money on an enormous flat—spurning four entirely adequate ones within the ministry. He then lied in a foolish and transparent way. His apparent inability to see this as wrong reinforced the image of politicians as self-glorifying and cynical. He went, causing much damage. The president's credibility fell further with the start of a big corruption trial involving a clutch of his former political assistants. Were it not for the Chirac-appointed court which in 2002 decided that ruling presidents could not be questioned in court, he too would be called to give evidence, and possibly charged.
As Chirac's past begins to catch up with him, his present practices are not helping the yes campaign. Having called voting no une connerie, he then told the managing director of France Télévision to cancel a programme whose principal guest was to be José Manuel Barroso, commission president, because his non-French vision of Europe might upset too many people.
Meanwhile, both main political parties are indulging in a series of internal squabbles. On the left, many Socialists openly taunt their leader by defying his attempts to whip them into line. The right claim that every time their prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, opens his mouth, he loses them votes: they want him locked away until 30th May. Many hope that if the referendum is rejected, Raffarin will be replaced. But his most obvious successor, Dominique de Villepin, an aristocrat not elected to parliament, is also unpopular in many quarters. A rumour has it that if polling figures for "yes" remain low, Chirac will promise to appoint his young rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, as prime minister. Since the French invariably come to dislike their prime minister after a couple of years, this plan has the advantage that it would give Sarkozy two years to run himself out of the presidential race in 2007. Sarkozy has been conspicuous by his absence from television screens. Staying out of sight to distance himself from the Socialists and Chirac, it is thought he privately wants the "no" vote to win so that he can capitalise on the president's defeat. He is spending the campaign where no one bothers to watch: in the overseas French departments.
Many French people are pro-Europe, or at least pro the Europe they thought they knew, but they are against the tone of this constitution because they feel it is too Anglo-Saxon. Many voters think that they will lose whichever way they vote. The no voters understand that their victory would destroy much that France has built up over 50 years, a sort of collective existential suicide. Many of those who will vote yes also feel they have lost Europe, the Europe of Monnet and Delors—but nevertheless feel they must do so because a victory for the other side will set off a chain reaction of diminishing French influence. A recent TNS Sofres poll showed that while 53 per cent said they would vote no, only 39 per cent want the no camp to win. I believe that on the day, fear of the abyss will probably sway enough people to vote yes, although to date the only yes camp argument that has struck a chord is the claim that voting no will help George W Bush. It is easier to ignite the anti-Americanism in a Frenchman than the pro-Europeanism.
