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Chirac Plans to Ignore 'Non' Vote

Thread ID: 18423 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2005-05-27

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Quantrill [OP]

2005-05-27 19:21 | User Profile

[color=Blue]In typical EU style, Chirac is planning on disregarding the outcome of the French referendum if its outcome doesn't suit him. This is what happened in Ireland, as well, with multiple referenda being held until the 'correct' result was achieved.[/color]

                                                                              <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="400"> <tbody><tr><td>**Turmoil as Chirac plots to disregard 'non' vote**
                        By Philip Webster and Charles Bremner 
             </td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10">[img]http://images.thetimes.co.uk/images/trans.gif[/img]</td> </tr></tbody> </table>                                                 <!-- main story start-->

PRESIDENT CHIRAC of France is preparing to throw Europe into confusion and put Britain on the spot by backing moves to keep the European constitution alive if it is rejected in Sunday’s referendum.

French diplomats say that M Chirac is expected to urge other countries to proceed with ratification because France does not want to be seen to be blocking the European project. Any attempt to persuade other countries to go ahead will dash the hopes of those in the British Government who believed that a French rejection would make a British referendum unnecessary.

British ministers argue that it will be impossible to hold a referendum next year because the final shape of the treaty on which the British would be voting will be unknown.

President Chirac was still insisting last night that renegotiation was out of the question if the French vote "no". British ministers believe that the only way that the French could get eventual approval would be to amend the constitution in a way that would make it unacceptable in Britain.

“We do not know if there is going to be a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but a ‘no’ would create massive uncertainty about what we are supposed to be voting on,” a ministerial source said. M Chirac went on French television last night to deliver a dramatic last-ditch appeal for a ‘yes’ vote. He urged the French people not to punish his Government.

“The decision before us goes far beyond traditional political divisions,” he said. The choice was “about your future and that of your children, of the future of France and the future of Europe. On Sunday, everyone will have a share of the destiny of France in its hands.”

He argued that the constitution would strengthen France’s influence in Europe and reinforce the French social model. Rejecting it would create “divisions and doubts” in Europe when “we need a political Europe capable of bringing about a genuine European power”.

But the latest poll showed the rejectionists’ support growing to 55 per cent — the 13th poll in succession to put the ‘no’ camp ahead. With two days of campaigning left, the French political establishment was left hoping for a Liverpool-style comeback.

Even as M Chirac prepared to deliver his appeal last night the recriminations within his centre-right UMP party had begun, and he was said by colleagues to have accepted that he had bungled by calling a referendum.

A "no" vote would leave M Chirac seriously weakened. His rival Nicolas Sarkozy, the UMP leader who aspires to become president in 2007, was blaming the Chirac Government's policies for fuelling the voter rebellion. M Chirac is expected to react to a French "non" by promising to listen to the people before making a second attempt at ratification.

He and other "yes" campaigners have said repeatedly during the campaign that there is no “Plan B” if the treaty is rejected and that there would not be a second referendum.

But one option being discussed in senior diplomatic circles is for candidates in the French presidential election in 2007 to promise to ratify the treaty in parliament rather than by referendum.

Mr Blair is expected to respond to the French result on Monday morning from Italy, where he is spending the Bank Holiday weekend. He is reconciled to Britain's six-month presidency of the EU, which starts in July, being dominated by efforts to salvage key parts of the constitution if the French and Dutch reject it.

[url="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1629946,00.html"]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1629946,00.html[/url]

xmetalhead

2005-05-27 19:40 | User Profile

Well, the French people should be given all the credit for rejecting this monstrous piece of legislation. It's not about Chirac, as the American-Jewish neocon press would have you believe. If anything, Chirac has shown democracy in action for letting the people decide their future. When did the US Gov ask it's people to vote on laws that will directly influence their lives??

The French people certainly know that the EU Constitution will long outlive Chirac's presidency. I'd think that if the French thought the EU Constitution would benefit them, they'd vote OUI by a large, overwhelming percentage.

I've been following this story for weeks and to hear the people speak, their top most concerns are the same concerns that we talk about here on OD everyday. The French are worried about their jobs disappearing into the black holes of China and India and their country being overrun by immigrants if and when the EU Constitution becomes law. Period! They're also afraid of the British/American neo-liberal economic model taking over their country while losing sovereignty over their own affairs.

While the EU Superstate would be a good counterweight to American hegemony, it just seems that the ordinary French and European citizen will be the losers in the long run.

I wonder if OD's new member Howling Privateer from France could shed some more light on this subject?

Quantrill

2005-05-27 20:10 | User Profile

[QUOTE=xmetalhead]Well, the French people should be given all the credit for rejecting this monstrous piece of legislation. X, I think you may have misunderstood my editorial comments. I completely support the pending French rejection of this unholy EU constitution, and I hope that it totally derails the entire project of European unification. The EU is the result of new world order bureaucrats having free rein to institute their ideal, post-nationalist dystopia on the peoples of Europe. If Christian Europe is to survive in any recognizable form, the EU must be defeated.

[QUOTE=xmetalhead]It's not about Chirac, as the American-Jewish neocon press would have you believe. If anything, Chirac has shown democracy in action for letting the people decide their future. When did the US Gov ask it's people to vote on laws that will directly influence their lives?? Chirac is a post-nationalist fellow-traveling tool, and these referenda are a farce. The propaganda encouraging adoption of the latest EU treaty is always overwhelming, and when some nation still has the commonsense to reject it, then they simply turn up the propaganda, and have another referendum in a couple of years. That is why they are meaningless, because the bureaucrats simply hold them repeatedly until the 'correct' result is achieved.

[QUOTE=xmetalhead]The French are worried about their jobs disappearing into the black holes of China and India and their country being overrun by immigrants if and when the EU Constitution becomes law. Period! They're also afraid of the British/American neo-liberal economic model taking over their country while losing sovereignty over their own affairs. And this is exactly what will happen if the EU constitution is ratified. In fact, it is happening already, under the EU framework that is already in force.

Local culture and local control are the answer. Down with the imperial, internationalist, expansionist, consumerist, secularist, industrial capitalist machine!

xmetalhead

2005-05-27 20:26 | User Profile

Q, I totally agree with you, and I wasn't refuting you at all, the EU Constitution is unholy and will be deadly for Europe....I was just venting towards the journalists Webster and Bremmer, who mentioned absolutely nothing about WHY there's such a high NON percentage of voters in the first place.

Howling Privateer

2005-06-04 18:49 | User Profile

Opinion from a conservative newspaper:

Le non oblige les élites – qui ne sont plus des exemples – à ouvrir enfin les yeux sur l'état de la nation. Et le choc s'annonce rude, pour ceux qui auront refusé de regarder vivre les Français, malgré leur premier avertissement du 21 avril 2002. Dans le grand déballage qui s'amorce depuis dimanche, apparaissent des réalités brutales. Celle-ci, par exemple : ceux qui ont refusé le traité estimeraient à 67% qu'il y a trop d'étrangers en France (1). Ainsi parlent, notamment à gauche, des électeurs exaspérés. Inutile de les diaboliser encore : il va falloir les écouter.

The No compels elites - which are not any more models - to finally open the eyes on the state of the nation. And the shock is announced hard, for those which will have refused to look at the living of French, in spite of their first warning of April 21, 2002. In the great unpacking which has started since Sunday, appear brutal realities. This one, for example: those which refused the treaty would estimate at 67% that there are too many strangers in France (1). Thus speak, in particular on the left, some exasperated voters. Useless to demonize them again : they should be listened to.

[url]http://www.lefigaro.fr/debats/20050603.FIG0227.html[/url]

Opinion from a leftist newspaper:

Le rejet de l'étranger constitue l'humus d'un pays qui a accordé, il y a trois ans, 5 millions de voix à Jean-Marie Le Pen. Ainsi, 49 % des personnes interrogées approuvent l'affirmation selon laquelle «il y a trop d'étrangers en France». Et 67 % de ces dernières ont voté non, un symptôme qui témoigne du poids des bataillons lepénistes qui ont silencieusement provoqué la victoire du non dimanche. Au total, l'ensemble des «motivations» des électeurs du non traduit l'addition de ces refus : si 38 % se sont déplacés pour «permettre de renégocier le traité», 32 % mettent en avant leur «refus de l'Europe libérale», 31 % un «ras-le-bol» général, 27 % entonnent l'antienne souverainiste de la sauvegarde de «l'indépendance de la France» et 22 % clament leur «refus de l'adhésion de la Turquie» à l'Union européenne.

The rejection of the stranger constitutes the humus of a country which granted, three years ago, 5 million voices to Jean-Marie Le Pen. Thus, 49 % of the questioned people approve the assertion according to which "there are too many strangers in France". And 67 % of these lasts voted no, a symptom which testifies the weight of the lepenist battalions which silently caused the victory of the No on Sunday. On the whole, aggregate of the "motivations" of the No voters represented the addition of these refusals : if 38 % moved "to make it possible to renegotiate the treaty", 32 % propose their "refusal of liberal(*) Europe", 31 % a general "dissatisfaction" , 27 % sing the souverainist refrain for safeguard of "the independence of France" and 22 % protest their "refusal to accession of Turkey" in the European Union.

[url]http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=300320[/url]

(*) means something like "minarchist" or "totally free-market capitalist" in France, the opposite of american definition.