Having landed in Paris barely 12 hours after the exit polls of the French EU Referendum were out, I had the benefit of witnessing first hand the post-mortem as well as the political fall-out that the French vote generated. That the result would be even more sour in Holland soon became a foregone conclusion.

Without waxing lyrical about the EU Constitutional treaty, I couldn’t help but conclude that most of the voters voted “no” for reasons totally unrelated to the treaty.

If they considered it anti-social, this was not true, as there was an added dosage of a social element to what existed before.

If they voted against immigration – particularly from large countries like Poland – they should have seen this coming well ahead of the 2004 enlargement.

An anti-Turkish vote had nothing to do with the treaty – even more so bearing in mind that Chirac had promised a separate referendum, should the EU come to decide to take the Turks on board.

While the Brits are against the constitutional treaty – or to be more precise – the EU itself, because they consider it to be too bureaucratic and centralist in its decision-making process, the French, on the contrary, feel that it is far too neo-liberal in its ways. If that is indeed so, the blame should fall on the President of the Commission Barroso for having often made declarations of intent which smacked of far too much neo-liberalism in the worst sense of the word, rather than blaming the treaty.

The French still believe that they can fight globalisation by merely attacking it frontally. An onslaught on the mere notion of globalisation will not make it go away. The same applies to excessive protectionism, which will surely not help meet and counter the challenge posed by both the US economy as well as the dynamism of emerging nations like China and India.

Some French people I spoke to mentioned the euro for having raised inflation and for having eroded export competitiveness through its over valuation. This sentiment seems to have found its echo in Holland too.

But what has the treaty got to do with all that?

Yet what irked the French most was that they were hardly consulted at all when it came to introducing the euro and the massive enlargement process of last year. So this was a golden chance to hit back.

The same thing that often happens when an insurance policy’s fine print raises suspicions among policy holders because nobody has the time or patience to go through it, also happened in the case of the over-long and wordy constitutional treaty.

It does not make sense to try, with all the best of intentions, to streamline the EU and make it more effective, when the codification process led to a massive and voluminous constitutional treaty which many people found hard to read or digest.

All those locals who have been calling for a renegotiation of the treaty know that this is virtually impossible, particularly after the ordeals and numerous leaders’ summits the EU had to go through before finalising matters. Can you imagine trying to get 25 member states to agree to a new revised treaty?

It will also be unfair on the 10 EU member states to make them write off the positive outcome that they have experienced through their recent ratification.

To my mind, the constitutional treaty cannot be gauged in isolation.

It must be seen within the context of the euro and the enlargement process, as well as the Lisbon strategy – which has been a failure if judged by any yardstick. Particularly as far as job creation is concerned.

Although failure to ratify the Constitution would mean falling back on the Nice treaty, one must bear in mind that, apart from its complexity, that particular treaty has become unwieldy because it was never intended for a Europe of 25 member states.

If Giscard d’Estaing really had in mind the same high ideals as those when the US Constitution was written, at least he should have tried to emulate the Americans by presenting a Constitution that was just as short, readable and digestible!

I very much doubt if President Chirac has made things better by appointing an elitist PM when part of the backlash of the referendum electorate in France was against the elitist class in France, which is considered to have become distanced from the problems, sufferings and frustrations of the ordinary man of the street.

On the other hand, I do not blame Sarkoszy for not having taken over the premiership, as this would have definitely burnt his presidential chances for 2007.

While Fabius made quite a comeback with the anti-party stand that he adopted – and won – I detected an element of opportunism in his stance, since even he is considered to harbour presidential candidature ambitions in the coming two years. And he might have had this matter in mind when taking the stand that he did.

There must be something surreal when socialists, trotskysts, communists, far rightists and greens all gang up together to give the French administration a decisive punch on the nose.

In the same way that the Iranians consider the question of nuclear power to be an issue of pride, this time round, as far as the French were concerned, it was a question of hurt pride.

Poland was no doubt on the target list, being the most populous of the new entrants. According to a Polish columnist, it was portrayed as a trouble-maker that wanted to slow down the process of integration.

If anything, they criticised the Constitution for being too “socialist”, while French voters said “no” because they considered it too free-market oriented.

French treaty opponents claimed that the treaty would sap the strength of member states and open the door to unrestrained capitalism, putting at risk France’s generous welfare system – which is something nowhere to be found in the treaty.

In so saying, I am in no way doubting the legitimacy of the French result. On the contrary, it is something which needs to be studied and analysed in depth.

As far as Malta is concerned, once we have to take a position it is important that we do it now – otherwise we will be playing into the hands of the Nationalists by dragging out the debate among ourselves and turning Europe once again into an election issue, come 2007 or 2008.

Although we have been dismissed as opportunists and people out in search of personal gain by some CNi exponents, I firmly believe that a qualified “yes” vote at this point in time makes most sense.

After all, we did promise government a decision of some sort by the end of June, after having managed to get it to postpone the parliamentary ratification which it had in mind for January this year.

So once government intends to push ahead with the ratification, it is important that we crystallise our position, rather than postpone it further, as some have suggested.

Europe might have all the time for navel gazing – institutional or not. We cannot and do not.

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Leo Brincat is the main opposition spokesman for Foreign Affairs and IT.