French voters go to the polls this weekend to vote on the European Union constitution, with polls so far suggesting that the “no’s” will narrowly win and shaft the wretched project, although one should never, ever under-estimate the ability of the political establishment to scare voters into saying “oui”. My hope, needless to say, is that the French vote against the constitution and throw a great big spanner in the works and prevent the creation of what will be, explicitly, a European superstate.
It is pointless at this vantage point to guess exactly what will be the impact on British political life if the French do nix the constitution. My rough guess is that Blair will secretly breath a deep sigh of relief, as will the Tories. I also think that the United States will also be glad about a no vote, although I am just guessing.
As Anatole Kaletsky writes in the Times today, the chronic underperformance of the euro zone economy is at the heart of much of that disenchantment (although other issues are important too).
Here’s a key graf:
The relative economic decline of “old” Europe since the early 1990s – especially of Germany and Italy, but also of the Netherlands and France – has been a disaster almost unparalleled in modern history. While Britain and Japan certainly suffered some massive economic dislocations, in the early 1980s and the mid-1990s respectively, they never experienced the same sort of permanent transformation from thriving full-employment economies to stagnant societies where mass unemployment and falling living standards are accepted as permanent facts of life. In Britain, unemployment more than doubled from 1980 to 1984, but conditions then quickly improved. By the late 1980s it was enjoying a boom, the economy was growing by 4 per cent and unemployment had halved. In continental Europe, by contrast, unemployment has been stuck between 8 and 11 per cent since 1991 and growth has reached 3 per cent only once in those 14 years.
He has a point, although I am struck by the fact that in France, much of the hostility to the constitution is coming not from pro-free marketeers, as is the case in many respects in Britain, but from those who fear that the process will open up France’s high regulated, high-tax economy to the icy winds of laissez faire. The ironies abound.
Of course, the fact of mere voters saying no to the EU juggernaut is unlikely to deflect the mixed assortment of deluded idealists, crooks, place-seekers and sundry camp-followers from trying to advance their aims. But a delicious irony would it be if the land of Bonaparte, de Gaulle and Asterix puts a major block in their path.
I am sticking to a 56% Yes vote. They don’t want this absurd “constitution”, but I’m convinced they cannot give up on the idea of Europe eventually being run on the French model. They think it’s their destiny. (They also think Jerry Lewis is funny.)
Fifty-six percent Yes vote. What say you, Jonathan?
PS – Holland will deliver a convincing No.
Verity, I have been looking at some of the polls and my money is on a 55 pct non, but a lot depends on turnout.
Here is a report on Bloomberg showing a clear preference for no.
(Link)
Where is the Dissident Frogman when we need him for some on-the-spot analysis?
I read Chirac went on TV and, as unlikely as it sounds, I think he will have persuaded some people to change their minds. We all know he’s a disgraceful old fraud, but he does love France with a passion and the French acknowledge this. Some will have been swayed. Betcha. I’m lowering my expectations to 53% Yes.
The fact that the French AND the British dislike it for completely opposite standpoints indicates either what a complete Platypus this constitution appears to many, or that the French and the British mindset are so far apart that there exists little or no overlap.
That should tell us something. No, we know this – it should tell the Brustlers something…as if they would admit it even in secret.
Jonathan – sorry to be hogging this topic, but I just saw that you opined the US would be pleased. Not too sure about that. Condoleezza Rice has been revealing her true colours, and she seems to be very pro the EU. Don’t know if this is personal opinion or comes from the top.
Because they are a country of immigrants and they cooperated and fashioned themselves into states in a federal entity – and it works, plus ou moins, most Americans have a terrible problem understanding ancient societies of indigenous peoples who have had intertwined histories for a couple of thousand years and are deeply attached to their own soil. They cannot grasp, most of them, that have resisted being conquered by the French or anyone else for a thousand years. We are not about to give in now, no matter how the socialists have weakened society and our sense of national identity.
I agree with Verity it will be a yes vote. Come on people Chirac will happen find several thousand Indians in the rain forest living around the Ariane launch site who will of course be voting 100% yes !! I believe several of them also had postal votes in the recent British election.
Do we have any reason to trust (or distrust) the voting results? Is there any history of vote fraud in France, or any particular reason to believe that the elites who control France will sit passively by without trying to put their thumb on the scales to get the results they want?
Just askin’, is all.
RC – Don’t know about history, but the folks who count the votes at the mairies are good solid citizens doing their bit – so in that sense, no. However, possibly the French government will not wish to deny the vote to dead people in Tahiti, Guadaoupe and Martinique. A landslide from the Caribbean and South Pacific would not amaze me.
A French Yes vote would be best for Britain in the long run.
A No vote would be seen as the rejection of laissez faire and the EU elite would rush to appease the anti-free market French.
With a Yes vote in France, Blair would be forced into holding a referendum in which Brits would vote No. If the European project then continued along its way without Britain on board it would force the issue of Britain’s expulsion onto the agenda.
Wolfie writes:
” it would force the issue of Britain’s expulsion onto the agenda.”
Oh, blessed day!
I’ve no idea which way the French will vote, though my spies tell me there is much in what Verity suggests might happen – that the French government will fiddle its colonial votes.
All I know is that the sooner the UK (or perhaps I mean England, given the proclivities of the Celts) leaves them to enjoy the museum of socialism with the rest of their hapless chums, the better.
Well my sensor says that since Maastrich was almost a NO in a good Pro EU mood in Europe. This will be a secure NO. I doubt that there have been any changes in French elector. Yeah those oversea territories will for sure vote yes. But it will be very suspicious if more than 50% vote there.
Btw dont dismiss the Fraud possibilities when most big parties agree . In El Salvador first elections the big parties agreed to “improve” the vote levels proportionnaly to not let guerrillas have a victory by low turnout.
Wolfie – They can’t expel Britain. We buy more from them than they sell to us. You don’t throw your best customer out the door. Uh … OTOH … well, maybe if you’re in a Gallic snit and your amour propre is wounded, you might foolishly start lobbying for it …
… hmmm even then, no. Think not. All the cheese producers and the wine producers and the car manufacturers and the B&Bs and the realtors, all of whom are voters … maybe not.
What do others think? Sylvain? And where indeed is the Diss?
Yes indeed, it would be a privilege and an honour to be drummed out of the EU, but I don’t see it. We’ll have to go of our own accord, and even then, as we walk away they will be clinging to our hems by their fingernails and being dragged along on their knees – and that’s just Messrs Chirac and Raffarin.
What a shame to make sullen enemies of previously grumpy old friends who make allowances …
Btw i think Jerry Lewis is funny…:)
Verity writes:
“Yes indeed, it would be a privilege and an honour to be drummed out of the EU, but I don’t see it.”
No, neither do I. As you say, they are far too dependent on exporting their third rate cars and taking advantage of our stupidity in allowing them free access to buy British companies (water utilities, Orange, Freeserve and countless others) while they continue to protect their own cash cows from “Anglo Saxon” practices, which they are the first to take advantage of when it suits them.
In the end, we will leave, I’m sure. It’s just a matter of when.
G Cooper – Despite T Bliar’s deranged clog dance all over Britain’s ancient freedoms and attempts to stamp out British – or maybe English – identity, I do think we will leave the EU. St Mark of Steyn had an excellent piece in this week’s Speccie. For those who aren’t registered and can’t get in, I hope this works (Link)
Jonathan, I don’t know if you’ve had the opportunity to read the proposed constitution – large quantities of caffeine and someone to regularly nudge you awake are a pre-requisite I’m afraid – but one little article above all else fills me with dread – Article I-41 which relates to the Common Security and Defence Policy.
Apart from the ominous clause 3, which requires all states to progressively bring their defence capabilites up to a standard to be monitored by a “European Defence Agency”, are we looking at a German-led European Union possibly having control of both the French and British nuclear arsenals? There does appear to be a catchall clause (Article I-41, Clause 5) which states,
This is later fleshed out in Article III-309 to, “Those Member States in association with the Union Minister for Foreign Affairs, shall agree among themselves on the management of the task”
Now nowhere have I found anything relating to either strategic or battlefield nuclear weapons. Regarding BNW I may be wrong but I think the UK abandoned its Lance nuclear missiles some time ago in favour of a common BNW defence policy in conjunction with other NATO members – but what of the French Battlefield Nuclear Weapons (France is an on/off member of NATO by the way – it would only commit to NATO if its own borders were under direct threat)?
In response to Julian Taylor’s post:
OUT. NOW. Europe is going to became very dangerous, because it will fail, and it will have nuclear weapons and its pride will be hurt.
Apply to be accepted as the 51st state and get the power and support of 50 other great states as family members.
Europe will become dangerous, and Britain should be no part of it.
http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=234745&z=1117147267260
french yes price at 23
Similarly, betfair has the Yes vote at ~$3, and the No at $1.25.
It’s interesting how betting agencies have been more consistantly successful at predicting the outcome of elections than pre-polls.
For the record, I have never wavered between 56% and 53% Yes. It is going through, folks.
–Europe will become dangerous, and Britain should be no part of it.–
Upon retirement, didn’t Winston say, “Never let yourselves be separated from the Americans?”
I’m all for Britain becoming the 51st state — although your state government would simply be a more totailitarian version of California (or even that of Massachusetts).
However, your local govt would have to get used to existing with a 4% state income tax — the other 28% or so would go to Uncle Sam.
On the other hand, you’d be allowed to own handguns once more, and rifles of all types.
(Okay, quit that cheering, willya?)
Ok, 4% state tax and, presumably, local residential or business rates?
Against 17.5% sales tax (VAT), plus up to 80% government duty on tobacco, alcohol, fuel and even on hospital oxygen (there – they even tax the air we breathe!).
Where do we sign up?
I’ve been in favour of becoming the 51st state for years. It started off as a wind up to liberals I know but the advantages are endless, distance is nothing, with London being closer to Washington than some parts of the US and there would be the joy of standing on the white cliffs waving off the legions of distraught liberals to the People’s Socialist Republic of Europe.
My prediction:
Actual result
53% – no
45% – yes
2% – Gallic shrug of indifference
Declared result
53% – yes
47% – no
I recommend that everyone get a copy of this tome and read it through. Surely the UK would be the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th? Or are we just talking about England joining the US.
Hmmmm…..
I’m an American. I hope for a no vote, although it’s against my economic interests.
Anythong that places more and more layers of economic and governmental restrictions on our competitors is a good thing economically.
Also I still hope Britain might escape, and a yes vote might indeed force the British to decide whether they really want to be a small part of the superstate.
But I am a moral creature too, and more government is bad for its victims. So on balance, non svp.
Though I too fear a petit oiu will be the result Monday.
I have been proposing for decades now that the USA start the expansion/absorbtion process for several nations. It actually is pretty easy. You don’t even have to become a state. The USA administers several different types of non-states. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia, Guam, etc. All are free to choose their status by referendum. I think the biggest barrier to adding states would be the domain ( ccTLDs ) change. It is pretty easy to add a new domain, but dropping one breaks a lot of links, so there would have to be a massive redirection effort. Sounds like bug city to me.
For an example the quixkest way to end the Arab-Israeli conflict would be to make Israel a state. That would piss off everybody in about equal parts, but it would end the violence. Let the young bucks discover that it is way more fun to go to a demonstration and hook up with some hot body then to get riddled by an IDF gunship and the Infatada is toast.
The most effectve solution to the wetback poroblem in the SW USA is to make Mexico part of the Union. Projections show the USA reaching a population of 500 million by 2025, so a few million more now won’t make that big a difference. Considering that the USA has more land area then either China or India, we have room. If western Canada joins the Union, we will be bigger then Russia, I think. Even if we have (get?) to trade New Englands for Western Canada. Once Global warming kicks in good, those million of Sq miles of snow and woods will become a very nice place. We could fit in a billion or so citizens without much trouble. Make a LOT of money doing it.
Regardless of the May 29th results, I must actually admit I admire the long-term political and PR abilities of the French establishment. I grew up and lived there until the age of 24 and there was little in the way of the official dogma according to which statism is the only solution to capitalism’s problems – a few real, most perceived; never mind that every bit of evidence screams the opposite.
This has certainly been helped by a rather sheepish media establishment essentially headed by people who were all together on the 1968 barricades and relish the pretense of leftist rebellion from their plush offices before heading back to their luxury homes in their Mercedes.
Still, the degree to which any alternative argument or explanation is derided, dismissed and generally ignored regardless of merit, as if it were some kind of external virus to be destroyed by the self-righteous antibodies of the republic, is nothing short of stunning. And the general willingness of the populace to comply with these hollow intellectual fatwas seems as inexhaustible today as it was a decade ago, if not more so. McDonald’s may be uncool but Michael Moore’s intellectual fast-food sure is a hot thing. You can’t be fat, but fashionable stupidity sure seems cooler than ever.
More recently – I admit to being a bit slow – I have started to wonder if the persistent obsession of the local elites with the defense of the language was not simply a way to defend and maintain this thought monopoly. The day our citizens start reading their news in a foreign language, especially – gasp – English, all bets are off. The day people actually watch and read the American media for themselves, as opposed to being told what it is, the emperor’s clothes will start looking very thin.
Until then, ‘neo-liberalism’ will be the official excuse for more state regulation, more taxes, more unemployment and an increasingly mediocre future.
Which would make it especially delightful if the same bogus arguments could, for once, undo yet another self-inflicted regulatory albatros.
On the other hand, you’d be allowed to own handguns once more, and rifles of all types.
(Okay, quit that cheering, willya?)>
I don’t think so Kim. If Chicago can get away with being in the Union and banning handguns, I can’t see why a British 51st state would be any different, we’d just end up sending two anti-gun Senators to Washington. Anyway, let’s not talk about whether the USC protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, because we’ll only wake Euan up, and there’s no percentage in that.
Sylvain, Interesting!
John K – Good thinking! Shssssssh! (Tiptoes away …)
Overheard at a dinner last night,
“Of course the continent should be allowed to intergrate into one central European state … just so long as they leave the UK out of it. After all, they do have experience of assimilation every 50 years or so when Germany takes over their country.”
How every true.
Sylvain, thank you for explaining to the non-French, what “elite” and “language” mean in France, to me its Newlang as G. Orwell said in “1984”. As you know, nothing has changed since you left and as you conclude the French “no” is collectivist. Voters are usually over 45 and all they want (even if they vote “right”) is more public spending: pre-retirements with 60 to 80% salary, 45 days of holiday (equivalent to 35 hours a week), the minimum wage to any housewife… They don’t want to hear that these allowances are debts and means unemployment and uncontrolled birth and immigration, for which they hold “ultra-liberalism” (evil UK and the USA), or EU responsible. But how about other successful countries?
Our political debates with 5 or 6 guests still welcome the leader of the communist party (3,5%) plus the leader of the LCR Ligue Communiste Révolutionaire (3%) more respected and heard than the conservative (in the French collectivist sense) de Villiers, Sarkozy or Le Pen… Most politicians are civil servants with life-employment and six-years leave plus multiple martingales to “live decently”.
5 trade unions have a LEGAL oligopoly on the working forces and represent altogether officially 5% of the private company workers and 10% of the public sector, (uncontrollable figure as often in France, and civil servants often subscribe for only one year in the hope of a personnel advantage). Yet these trade unions hold crowds in hostage during illegal metro and transportation strikes, keeping their good image in surveys (“fighting for solidarity and freedom”), while everybody knows public workers earn more and work less than their hostages. Racial and religious statistics are forbidden and never estimated in the media. What kind of vote can you expect from such a nation?
Thank you also to the American STAGHOUNDS (??) for his moral wishes for a “no”. I think it is also your economic interest. What French and non-French international businessmen and the American ignore (as Verity almost said) is that even a ruthless capitalist can’t make money with the French immigrants, the cultural conflict only allows cheaty benefits on our exceptionally heavy and poorly controlled social charges and taxes, but the productivity of OUR immigrants is low and their small businessmen are not good at filling forms out and contributing financially to the new multicultural French society. They take, give medical care to their cousins, they don’t pay their share but they buy real estate. The benefits are only based on illegal work or partly undeclared work. If you remember your French lessons or someone else’s, how do you think an illiterate or third world A level would do compared to an occidental? Where is the value added? So I think your interest is that your renowned economists learn more about each French administration and population, in order to treat France specifically and help it cure its collectivist state of mind. And anyway, haven’t you learned that sooner or latter, our trouble is yours?
Well, Alice, that was very interesting, but I think our economists already have a pretty clear understanding of the French administration and population, which is one reason they, in the main, advise us to stay well clear.
We won’t offer our help, because they hate our system. It’s too uncomfortable – in that you have to work hard. Anyway, don’t the French usually solve their own problems – with a revolution? I enjoyed your post, but sadly, I think France is on a downward slide just now. Yes, there are several million too many “immigrants” with rights and entitlements and a culture of ignorance and skiving. At the same time, there is this devotion to the 35 hour week, early retirement and long, long holidays, yet a very tiny wealth creating class. So who’s paying the freight? The best thing that could happen to shake France back to its senses is for the EU to implode.
And anyway, haven’t you learned that sooner or latter, our trouble is yours? You mean Johnny Halliday might start appearing on British talk shows?
Dear Verity,
Yours is a sad post with a very funny last sentence.
I’ve heard two American renowned economist talking knowingly about the six main countries of the EU, as if they were different sets of data giving different results through the same economic functions, but when asked precisely if they knew about life-employment of most politicians and trade unionist (and searchers, plus most of the teachers and so many key professions and the way to change position), about these 5% or 10% followers etc., and everything I wrote above, they admitted they had never heard of that and that they can’t take time to “go trough details”. These are no more details than the benefit or the deficit is to the cash flow, often no more than two percent. Important individual twists like tax free immigrants and civil servants 20% overpaid add up to more than a massive corruption of the elite would, and is ruining France. The Americans are very concerned and underestimate the lake of social and human capital and the aggressiveness of the immigrants. I don’t think the Americans keep clear as you said; they’re always looking for clients if not allies and employees. The new French citizens won’t be just bad clients, but enemies settled on a rich land endlessly trying to submit other people. The states will come next.
Economics is not an exact science, and if, what is more in France, the figures, the motivations and the incentives are dissimulated, what is left to describe objectively our activities? Maybe debts, fewer patents, subsidised families shooting movies and births.
“The day people actually watch and read the American media for themselves, as opposed to being told what it is, the emperor’s clothes will start looking very thin.” Or they might discover what utter crap it really is.
Alice – Your own post was also very sad – and very true. I love France. I loved my French neighbours – their courtesy and gentleness. I miss them even now. (This was in the Midi – veille France.) But honestly, life there just drove me crazy. The endless kowtowing to immigrants, which were advancing in importance (although not by contributing to the economy) centimetre by centimetre. No one had a problem, in my area, with the Moroccans, because they do take jobs. Any job- as a point of pride to support their own families. But the others. And the endless demands for yet more visas, visas, visas. And the government is so cowardly. And, of course, they are counting on the immigrants, in receipt of money and favours, to vote for them. (The Blair government is no different in this respect.)
As you rightly point out, who is paying for all this? Who is paying for these lovely short work weeks, endless public holidays with “bridge days”, long vacations, early retirement for the French and lavish benefits and free apartments for immigrants? Who is paying for all this? Is the French economy wealthy enough to support it? How can it be? Our only hope for Europe is if it regains its nerve, allows the EU to implode and regains its self-esteem and capitalistic vigour.
The beautiful new overpass at Millau is impressive and a thing of wonder, but it is not going to re-invigorate a moribund economy. They are concentrating on all the wrong things!!
“…when Germany takes over their country…” – It used to be the French job to do that. No wonder they are so pissed-off.