Not the Answer They Expected

IT is ironic, as the saying goes, that it should be the French who provoked the latest Euro-crisis by decisively rejecting the European constitution in a referendum. The constitution is essentially a French document, written by former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing in line with France’s vision of Europe, and it had the virtually unanimous support of the country’s media and political elite. What’s more, it offered the French voters their best chance of saving the high-cost welfare state and regulated economy that they apparently thought they were protecting by voting no. It would have imposed similar if slightly less onerous costs and regulations across the continent, gradually evening out the differences between France’s 28 percent addition to an employer’s labor costs and Britain’s modest 9 percent. But this struck the French as an impermissible level of free-market “ultra-liberalism,” an evil equivalent to the Communism of the last century, as President Chirac recently reminded them. They accordingly voted against this “Anglo-Saxon” heresy with more enthusiasm and less discernment than Chirac had hoped.

Whatever their level of information, however, French voters clearly believed they were protecting their national interest and character. The referendum result was, among other things, an expression of French patriotism, as until now support for European integration has been. Almost alone in Europe, the French have seen the European Union as an extension of themselves-France writ large and thus able to continue playing a glorious role on the world stage. Once doubts were sown on this score, however erroneously and doubtless temporarily, the French rejected the project.

About the Author

John O’Sullivan

John O’Sullivan is a senior fellow at National Review Institute and a contributing editor of National Review.

Featured Tags

IT is ironic, as the saying goes, that it should be the French who provoked the latest Euro-crisis by decisively rejecting the European constitution in a referendum. The constitution is essentially a French document, written by former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing in line with France’s vision of Europe, and it had the virtually unanimous support of the country’s media and political elite. What’s more, it offered the French voters their best chance of saving the high-cost welfare state and regulated economy that they apparently thought they were protecting by voting no. It would have imposed similar if slightly less onerous costs and regulations across the continent, gradually evening out the differences between France’s 28 percent addition to an employer’s labor costs and Britain’s modest 9 percent. But this struck the French as an impermissible level of free-market “ultra-liberalism,” an evil equivalent to the Communism of the last century, as President Chirac recently reminded them. They accordingly voted against this “Anglo-Saxon” heresy with more enthusiasm and less discernment than Chirac had hoped.

Whatever their level of information, however, French voters clearly believed they were protecting their national interest and character. The referendum result was, among other things, an expression of French patriotism, as until now support for European integration has been. Almost alone in Europe, the French have seen the European Union as an extension of themselves-France writ large and thus able to continue playing a glorious role on the world stage. Once doubts were sown on this score, however erroneously and doubtless temporarily, the French rejected the project.