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L’État, C’est Moi
The president of the EU constitution's drafting committee has demanded that France be forced to vote again on the treaty.
"It is not France that has said no," claims Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the 80 year old former president of France, "It is 55 per cent of the French people - 45 per cent of the French people said yes." Eh? Even by the Jesuitical terms of Eurocrats and French politicians, we're talking serious semantics here.
It appears Giscard's objection is that France didn't give a symbolic no. Of course, no boom rejecting the EU constitution echoed from the orchards of Normandy to the hills of Provence. Sculptures of Marianne in town halls across the country didn't spring to life to yell "No!" in unison. Jacques Chirac, current incumbent of the post which is supposed to combine French identity in mysticism and politics, didn't say no on behalf of his people (he said yes, and look where it got him).
Giscard, speaking in the FT, still goes by the name "father of the constitution." He led the team that drafted the failed treaty, promising that grateful Europeans would "erect statues in the drafters' honour" in their town squares. One of the British delegation complained later that anyone questioning the constitution's federalist principles was sidelined by Giscard's lackeys - who would sneakily introduce changes to the text after other delegates had left.
The constitution, said critics, was the product of a distant elitist group. As the most absurdly grandoise of recent French presidents, Giscard embodies Europe's elite better than anyone. L'etat, c'est him. France's elite comprehensively backed the treaty. Perhaps that's Giscard's problem: Only France's people rejected the EU constitution - and what do they know? They should have confined the question to the elite.
Unfortunately for Giscard, a second vote is not on the cards. Presidential contender Nicolas Sarkozy has said "It won't be me who tells the French that they didn't understand the question the first time it was asked" - and the opposing Socialist Party, should it win, is highly unlikely to reopen wounds which have barely healed since last year's referendum. Both sides are said to favour passing a revised, shortened treaty through parliament - though this could be attacked as sneakier still.
Giscard is putting his hopes on the French changing their mind: "The people might consider they made a mistake", he said, reflecting that asking the same question twice has a legal precedent in the EU (see Ireland and Denmark on Nice and Maastricht). The Dutch, too, might reconsider, though a report issued today by the Dutch government rejects a second vote on the treaty. The Dutch will be open to ideas for EU reform from 2008 onwards, the government says - but judging by Holland's anti-enlargement and increasingly Eurosceptic outlook, Dutch reforms might not be what Eurocrats have in mind.
Britain is probably a lost cause, Giscard concedes - the EU will have to come to a "special arrangement" with Britain rather like Britain's refusal to date to enter the single currency.
