Close-up EU Constitution has many in France galled Sunday, May 29, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m. By Glenn Frankel The Washington Post
A woman passes "Yes" and "No" campaign posters for today's referendum on the European Union constitution in a street of Lille, northern France. Polls show undecided voters could make or break the race. (MICHEL SPINGLER / AP)
RAHAY, France — The tart red wine on the kitchen table in Pierre Mercier de Beaurouvre's farmhouse was made in France. So were the garlicky sausages, the duck pâté, the eggs, bacon, cream and herbs in his omelet — even the table salt. And so is the way of life on the 500-acre family farm where this ex-paratrooper grows wheat, corn and herbs on land his wife's ancestors have tilled for more than two centuries.
But as far as he is concerned it is a way of life that is under siege — from bureaucrats in Paris and Brussels, Belgium, with their regulations and high taxes, and from foreign countries whose cheap products and low-waged workers threaten French industries and jobs. And because he wants to protect his quality of life, de Beaurouvre says he plans to vote against the draft European Union constitution in a national referendum today.
"The biggest problem is I no longer believe I'm governing myself," said de Beaurouvre on his Loire Valley farm, some 100 miles southwest of Paris.
For more than five decades, France and its political leaders have been at the heart of the historic project to unify Europe. But to the great surprise of the political elite here, the constitution has run into serious problems, with poll after poll suggesting it could go down to defeat.
Defeat in France could mean defeat for the document in all of Europe; the rules say adoption requires approval by all 25 member countries. So far, six countries have said yes.
French voters on both the left and right have found reasons to reject the 380-page document, defying pleas from the country's two major parties, which officially support it.
Critics on the left contend that the constitution enshrines free-market principles that would undermine French values and damage the country's elaborate social-welfare network. Conservatives such as de Beaurouvre believe it would vest too much power in a faceless and unaccountable bureaucracy, transfer more French funds to former communist countries in Eastern Europe that joined last year, and open the door for membership to Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country.
But underlying the entire debate is a deep sense of unease and disaffection about the French nation — its economy, its future and its place in the world.
Supporters of the constitution offer sometimes-contradictory arguments.
Some contend the document is nothing more than a treaty designed to modernize and streamline decision making in the European Union to take into account the union's expansion from 15 to 25 member states a year ago. It guarantees freedom of speech and religion, and the right to shelter, education, collective labor bargaining and fair working conditions. It gives the 732-seat European Parliament, directly elected by the citizens of all 25 states, more power to shape or reject EU legislation.
It requires the EU executive to inform national parliaments about all new initiatives, and to reconsider whenever a combined one-third of the assemblies judges a policy proposal to be stepping on members' toes.
Yet vague — some say totally unfounded — fears persist, especially in the smaller EU nations, that they will eventually lose control over domestic issues — that Brussels will tell them how many immigrants they must accept, or how big a sales tax they can levy.
President Jacques Chirac has told French voters it will create a stronger, more cohesive Europe that will be able to stand up in the world, preserve social-welfare programs and keep out "ultra-liberalism," as American-style free-market economics is known here.
Chirac, 72, pressed for a referendum, analysts say, because he believed it would split the opposition Socialists and produce a lasting personal triumph for the twilight of his political career. But opponents mobilized quickly.
Etienne Chouard, a high-school teacher in Marseilles, became something of a folk hero to the No campaign when he started a Web site attacking the document. Soon, he says, he was attracting 25,000 hits per day.
Chirac's own conservative political party splintered, with neo-Gaullists — the ideological heirs of the late president Charles de Gaulle — arguing the document would subordinate France and threaten its sovereignty.
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a conservative legislator and a leader of the No campaign, says voters are concerned about high unemployment — officially at 10 percent but double that rate for young people — stagnant growth, a bloated public sector and an out-of-touch political elite.
He also says EU foreign policy — influenced by pro-American governments in countries such as Britain and Poland — would be too accommodating to Washington and less independent.
The Socialist Party endorsed the EU constitution last year, but many members have remained opposed.
"For years when French politicians have to cut the budget or close post offices, they go on television and blame Brussels," said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist leader and Yes campaigner. "It's only natural that after 50 years people feel alienated."
Part of the alienation is a fear of outsiders — what political scientist Jacques Rupnick called "the myth of the Polish plumber." The government has acted to restrict people from formerly communist EU nations from moving to France. The nightmare scenario: that low-priced providers — not just plumbers and carpenters but also financial-service firms and employment agencies — will undercut their high-priced French competitors.
Jacques Lang, the former Socialist minister of culture, contends the anti-constitution forces in his own party have conducted a campaign based on fear and distortion. "It is chauvinistic and arrogant — the worst of ourselves," he said.
Still, French fears resonate in places such as the Loire Valley, part of France's rural heartland. "Most people are living well here, but there is a lot of pessimism," said Michel Letellier, the left-leaning mayor of Saint-Calais, a town of 4,000 near Rahay, who says many residents — himself included — have yet to decide.
One of the biggest fears is known here as "de-localization" — that French businesses will flee east to cheaper environments. Letellier says something similar happened in the 1980s when clothing and electronic equipment factories left for North Africa. People worry the same thing could happen some day to the paper factory that employs 800 people on the edge of town.
Opinion polls suggest two-thirds of French farmers oppose the new constitution, in part because they oppose changes in the EU system of farm subsidies, known as the Common Agriculture Policy, which helps prop up prices and provides a wall of protectionism around French crops.
De Beaurouvre complains that the EU has turned him and his neighbors into farmer-bureaucrats who have a lawyer on retainer in Brussels to keep track of all the new farming regulations. Still, he estimates he receives 20 to 30 percent of his income from EU subsidies. "I'm for Europe, but not the Europe of the bureaucrats," he said.
After a slow start, the Yes campaign has begun to rally its forces. Chirac brought in the leaders of Germany and Poland recently to lend their support. French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin warned the economy would plummet if France voted no.
Dominique Berrehar, a country doctor based in the small village of Prunay, is conducting his own personal campaign, speaking to hundreds of patients about the new document and seeking to ease their fears. "When a person is depressed, they close in on themselves and nothing interests them and they say no to everything," Berrehar says. "So France is in a state of depression."
Guy de Vanssay, owner of a local chateau, said he plans to vote yes. "By itself, France is nothing, Germany is nothing, England is nothing," he said. "It's Europe that is something, so we have no choice but to support it."
Details of the constitution were reported by The Associated Press.
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