Thursday
(1)Unless he was lying on national television again, or changes his mind like he did several times over the Maastricht Treaty, Saddam Hussein's best chum has announced that the French (and colonies) will be given a chance to vote on the proposed European Union constitution.
Lucky, we know all the dirty tricks that can be used in such a referendum campaign, they were all used last time by the Florentine François Mitterand, to get the Maastricht Treaty through. So we shall be campaigning in Guadeloupe, and Martinique, and the Isle de la Réunion, and French Polynesia, St Pierre et Miquelon and New Caledonia, and Wallis et Futuna if necessary to avoid losing by 40,000 votes. Get the Atlas out!
I am starting a voter registration guide among the French refugees living in London. I am also checking whether foreign EU citizens living in France can vote and how to arrange this. My new blog Combat (named after the WWII Resistance magazine against the Nazi occupation) launched today will be tracking the campaign in French.
Instead of the national anthem's "aux armes citoyens!", let us "aux urnes citoyens!"
*"To the ballot boxes citizens!"
Yeah, like I'm going to lose sleep on this one.
OF COURSE we're going to have a referendum. We do have lotsa referenda down here because we're the best democracy in the world and We The People Really Rule.
In fact, and as far as the Slavery charter EU constitution is concerned, we're going to have referenda until we give them the answer they want.
That's Mitterrand style indeed: when you don't like We The People's answer, ask the question again.
Posted by the dissident frogman at July 15, 2004 03:07 PM
AND WE'RE GOING TO GUADELOUPE, AND WE'RE GOING TO MARTINIQUE, AND REUNION, AND FRENCH POLYNESIA, AND ST. PIERRE, AND ST. MARTIN, AND NEW CALEDONIA, AND WALLIS AND FUTUNA, AND THEN WE'RE GOING BACK TO BRUSSELS TO KEEP SCREWING THE REST OF EUROPE OUT OF ITS MONEY TO KEEP OUR ECONOMY AFLOAT!!! YEEEEEEEEAGH!!!(Link)
...Just sounds familiar, that's all...
Posted by Thief at July 15, 2004 04:23 PM
So how many times do the French get to "get it right"?
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge at July 15, 2004 04:47 PM
In defence of Gustave, when the Maastricht Treaty was presented to the French electorate in September 1992, the No campaigners found themselves defeated by two factors: the treason of the then opposition leader Chirac and the cunning of Mitterrand. The former started the campaign against, went neutral and finished in favour, boasting that without him, the Treaty would have failed.
Mitterrand quiety informed the overseas territories' governors that he would withhold subsidies if the "sound" result did not happen. In some territories the vote went 90 per cent for Maastricht. The anti-euro right in France firmly believes that these votes were comprehensively rigged. Considering that if, say, only Guadeloupe had voted the same way as mainland France the Treaty would have been dead, one can see how bitter the result was.
Oh and in any case, one of the key concessions the 'Yes' campaigners made was a public promise to hold a separate referendum on whether France should join the Euro. We're still waiting.
If the dissident frogman is advocating sitting-out the referendum in France on the grounds that it can only delay matters, then I disagree. Even a delay matters especially if several countries do so. Unlike an normal French election where one merely gets to choose which énarque crook fleeces us, this one really matters.
To the best of my knowledge, French referendums are not repeated "until they get the right result". We usually take to the streets between the second and the third plebiscite...
Posted by Antoine Clarke at July 15, 2004 05:29 PM
