Aurelie Herbemont

Like most of the French living abroad – even though I have been living in Malta for only four months – I was in favour of the treaty establishing a Constitution for the European Union. It could be explained by the fact that living abroad means you are affected by what is happening directly in France. I made my proxy and I voted “Yes” in the referendum on 29 May because I wanted to express myself in favour of this new step in the construction of the EU. There weren’t enough of us to carry this through! Eighty per cent of the French living abroad said yes – 76 per cent in Malta – but the French citizens rejected it by 55 per cent. Usually, the results in Malta reflect the general results in France, but this time it was far from being true…

The idea of a Constitution appealed to me from the beginning, and the things I read in it, even though I must admit that I really wondered whether it was a good Constitution when I read all the controversial debates taking place in France. Of course, I myself don’t find the Constitution perfect, but I think we will never have a perfect one – if one day we manage to agree on a text obviously!

As the campaign progressed, I saw that more and more French people were against this Constitution. I was a bit lost and I wanted to understand. And actually, even though I understood the arguments of the no camp I must admit that I didn’t really agree with most of them. Moreover, most of the politicians who defended this point of view are not really the ones I would trust. Most of the politicians who defended the no-vote are “extremists”: the Front National, an extreme right wing party; the Mouvement Pour la France, a “right-extreme” political party that is anti-European; the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire and Lutte Ouvriere, two extreme-left parties. These were a few political parties where there was no debate on whether they were in favour of or against this Constitution. At least there was consensus for the No in these political parties as opposed to the others!

Ok, it is an exaggeration to say the no-vote was given by the extremists because some politicians from other parliamentary parties were also against it. In all “normal” parties there were people in favour and others against this Constitution. It was not very easy for the electors to distinguish who was telling the truth. And actually, there is no truth in this Constitution. Precise enough to give a guideline, and vague enough to provide several ideals. That is why the two majors parties, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (party of President Jacques Chirac) and the Parti Socialiste (the major opposition party) were mainly in favour of the Constitution.

I still don’t really understand why some politicians were against this Constitution (especially in the Parti Socialiste); I suspect that for a few of them it was one way to make it to the centre of the political stage, because they felt that they could benefit from a ‘no’ victory. They decided to oppose leaders of their political party, to harvest the fruits of this ‘courage’ – or rather, opportunism, I would say.

It is scary to see this though because people either followed the extremists, or the go-getters. In France we love the extremes. Or let me put it this way: we hate government parties.

Besides the rejection itself, there are other problems linked to this result. The no from the right is really different from the no on the left. To simplify; one is anti-European; one is anti-liberalism. However, they agreed on one point, “No” to this EU, but remain opposed to what the Constitution and the EU should be. So even if there are renegotiations, it would be impossible to conciliate these different views. Oppositions came from everywhere, while support was more or less unified on the idea of this necessary new step in the EU. Let’s imagine something improbable: if we had had a special referendum, which included a subsidiary question, like “if you say no, what is your reason?” the result would have been really different. Of course it is not the principle of a referendum I know! Answer A: “because I don’t like the principle of the EU”. Answer B: “because I want another Europe”. Answer C: “because I want to show my disapproval of the government”. In this case, Yes would have won, since all the no-voters would be unable to propose a common alternative project. I don’t really see how we could have a compromise between these visions. Will the rest of the EU give us the opportunity to have a compromise?

The Netherlands said no as well, fortunately I would say from my French point of view. Indeed it shows that the political and economical climate in France was not the only reason to say no to this treaty. Had we been the only country, it would have been ridiculous – or more ridiculous than it is – since the other Europeans must laugh at the French who would like to rule the EU… they must laugh, even if it is not that funny. Indeed, if this “crisis” only affected France, it would have been well done. But it is not the case since it affects the EU as a whole. I personally don’t really care about the fact that the voice of France will be lessened in the European institutions. Indeed I am not one of those French who want France to be more powerful than others in the EU. And now, it sure won’t be the case in the next years. However, this result is really French. These French who always want to be in the spotlight… well done. These French who were the first to reject a Constitution written by a convention headed by a French politician…“Stars” of all the European – and even American! – newspapers. There was indeed not so much noise when the other States ratified this same treaty.

I am deeply convinced that the European Union needs a Constitution to be a real union. At the beginning it was a “community” that became a “union”. It is not only a change in the words; it must be a change in the idea of the EU. Union implies more agreements, more common policies, more than an economic area. I firmly believe that the EU needs a Foreign Affairs Minister for example, to speak with one voice on an international level, in order not to have a repeat of the scenario like the war in Iraq. Every country decided off its own bat whether to join the Americans or not. How can the EU expect to be credible if it cannot have a single voice on similar important issues? Besides, adopting a common currency doesn’t mean nothing to me. When you give up the sovereignty on your currency it means that you have inevitably given up a part of your national power, which is why we have so many anti-Europeans in France. Indeed, having a currency and ruling your monetary policy is really the sign of sovereignty in our world. We have the same currency, or more precisely we almost all have the euro or are going to have it, since the new members will soon get it, and we are not even able to speak with one voice on the international scene. It is a kind of nonsense for me.

Actually, I was afraid of the result of the referendum because I was sure that the No would win, even if I hoped the contrary would happen. 55 percent average. At least, the Dutch citizens did better – or worse – than the French, as 63 per cent rejected the treaty.

The idea of the referendum was itself a bad one, since it is clear that most of the citizens didn’t read the Constitution and are not even qualified to understand it. Constitutional vocabulary is indeed a difficult vocabulary, so most of us only followed positions defended by the political parties. Hard to follow a political party who has no single opinion on the text though. It was probably unfair to ask us about that. Besides, why should the French, the Dutch or the Spaniards (who said yes, but with a very low turnout) be more qualified to express themselves on such a complicated text than other Europeans?

But, the most important point is that it is unfair to have different ways of ratification in all countries. Why do some have a legislative referendum? Why do others have a consultative referendum, like the Dutch – even if the government won’t go against such a huge majority? (Besides, they don’t need to overrule the citizens’ decision, since France “killed” the treaty first). Why do others ratify the treaty by an Act of Parliament? I mean, all the countries have to ratify the same text, so why don’t they all ratify the treaty in the same way? Actually I think the best thing would have been to have a referendum all over Europe on the same day, and we would have had citizens’ vote, not the States’. If the majority of the European citizens had said yes, the Constitution would have come into power, if not it wouldn’t have. This method would have avoided the influence of home politics on the vote, especially in France, because some French citizens decided to say no because they were unhappy with the political and economical climate in France, like the President, the government, the EU... The referendum would not have been used to express rejection of the current politics in France, as people would have focused on the European issue itself. A country wouldn’t have been responsible for the rejection of the treaty; it would have been rejected by the “Europeans” or adopted by them. It would have been the beginning of a European public space. It was indeed a bit dangerous to decide that States had to ratify separately, as we knew that only a single “No” would put the treaty in jeopardy.

My reaction when I saw the results of the referendum was to say “Vive la France” – ironically of course – and thought of the new members of our great huge EU – “Welcome to the European Union”. My judgement can indeed be biased by the fact that I am living in another European country, which shows that I am a real Europhile. And when you see that 80% of the French people living abroad voted Yes to this treaty, while in France they were only 45%, you wonder what happened, and really feel you missed something while this was going on in your country. It is true that the French politicians in favour of the Yes were not really convincing, according to what I read on-line during the campaign. Some in favour of the No were quite convincing, but most of them had bad arguments. It is caricature, but when you hear Jean Marie Le Pen, from the Front National, saying that we should refuse this treaty “to respect the memory of the ancient fighters of the world wars”, it is not difficult to realise how nonsensical it is. Or saying that saying no is the only way to avoid the entry of the Turkey in the EU – since in France lots of people are against Turkey joining the EU – that is nonsense as well. Indeed, several enlargements were made without a Constitution so I don’t see the point of this argument. Or when you hear that saying No is the only way to avoid delocalisation. How, please? Delocalisation existed before the treaty, and will continue with or without it.

Obviously, all the people who said no are not all extremists. I know some of them and we had lots of debates thanks to e-mails in which everyone expressed his or her views. It was a passionate debate, and probably the good thing about this no vote was that it made people interest themselves to Europe, since the turnout was higher than for previous elections on European issues.

The power of the democracy is to say yes or no. In this case, France said no; it is really rare to have such an overwhelming majority in one camp. In the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the difference was small. But in this referendum, 54.68 per cent chose to reject this Constitution, which is really a lot. And the difference is that in 1992 we only had the anti-European saying no, while this time, we also had pro-Europeans, who wish for another EU though. It was impossible to get a Yes from France.

And from a French point of view on my country, I now realise that our political life no longer suits the aspirations of the French citizens. If the treaty had been ratified by Parliament, it would have won by an average of 80 per cent, while the citizens won the No vote with 54.68 per cent. The political parties who represent the French citizens are no more representative! Our so-called representative democracy is no more valid, when we see the result of the referendum. There is a deep gap between politicians and citizens, it was the case before this poll, but now it is obvious. France has a problem.

Moreover this treaty condensed previous text ruling the EU since its inception in the fifties. So saying no to this new treaty seems to be more a rejection of what the EU did from its beginning than a rejection of the future. Fear seems to be an important factor. It is probably the same for The Netherlands, another founding member. Fear of unemployment, fear of immigration, and fear of an enlarged EU… The EU has been “ruling” France for years and things are not going well, so why would one trust the EU? I think that unfortunately the French citizens voted for the small France and against the huge EU.

It is said that if Germany had chosen to hold a referendum, it would have been rejected as well. Ratification, thanks to an Act of Parliament was the best solution to be sure of a positive result, but it is scary if our representatives don’t represent what the citizens want. It would have been more secure if an Act of Parliament was passed in all countries, which is why, only a few decided to risk asking the citizens directly. It was a political risk, even more so in France where the citizens use referenda to show their disapproval to the political parties in power. Indeed I am not entirely sure that all the citizens who said no were all really saying no to the Constitution itself…

What will we do now? Let’s see what will happen in the European Summit (16 and 17 June). In any case I believe that we have to continue the “process of ratification”; it is not because one country – even though they are two now – says no that we don’t have to listen to the choice of the others. “Process of ratification” is no longer the good word though, let’s say “consultation”, since in any case, this treaty is dead – even if some want to save parts of it. And I don’t think it is a good idea that the UK decided to cancel the referendum - probably only to avoid a useless new no. But I guess I only have this opinion since I’d rather that other countries say no as well, not to feel like two if the black sheep in the EU... Why should we stop everything? It is giving lots of power to France… I think it is better to have opinions from all the members, although organizing expensive campaigns where there could be a referendum, is a total waste of money, since even if they all said yes, it would have no effective power! To be fair we have to have decisions from all the members, even if the fact that some have parliamentary ratification while others risked the referenda is not fair itself. But why would the vote of France be more important than the vote of the Czech Republic or the vote of Malta? Anyway, what a mess!