It is a truism of civic life in a democracy that when, on rare occasions, the major political parties, which otherwise daily contest for the privileges of power, unite on an issue—and warn of disaster if their “unity” is not ratified by the voters—something is very, very wrong. The dire warnings of the inevitable end of European civilization as we know it if the French vote against the so-called European constitution in their referendum tomorrow has, by now, so obviously degenerated into a transparent attempt at intimidation and panic-mongering that one cannot help but come to the conclusion that something is up, and that it is not good.
The truth is, what began as a sober and conscientious deliberation to address the European Union’s “democratic deficit” through a political and civic covenant that was publicly composed and openly debated has ended up as a dog’s breakfast, which is both manifestly absurd as a constitutional instrument and patently unconvincing as a statement of constitutional purpose. Regarding the first matter, the fact that this bureaucrat’s wet dream weighs in at a surrealistic 852 (!?!) pages is almost as much cause for satire as for sadness. That’s right: 852 pages. Specifically, 349 pages of the “constitution” per se; an additional 382 pages of “protocols” (but what would the EU be without its protocols); and, last—but far from least for a body that is as taken as any politburo of a people’s republic with the echoes of its own rhetoric resounding off the walls of marble-pillared palaces—121 pages of “declarations.” Sum total? An epic of political narcolepsy.
Just to put things in perspective, the charter produced by what was arguably the single, greatest assembly of constitutionalists ever to convene in human history, the Framers of the American constitution, comprised only seven articles, which were articulated in a total of under 4,300 words—about nine pages, single-spaced. (The Bill of Rights that arose out of the ratification process subsequently added another…462 words.) Brevity is clearly not only the soul of wit, but of wisdom—and of political coherence and vision.
Which is why the French cannot be blamed for having been overcome by dread once they stopped laughing at the sheer inanity of the constitution’s heft. Because behind this unmagic mountain of only occasionally intelligible, and purposely mystifying, Eurospeak lies a much more ominous, indeed malign, pact, which the French, in their collective good judgment, have managed to uncover and bring to the fore of their public debates on the issue, and on the future of Europe generally—namely, the Americanization of the European Union.
Or, more accurately, its “Atlanticization.” Now that NATO has become the Pinkerton agency of the US’s “humanitarian” police actions from the Hindu Kush to Equatorial Africa, a more obviously “Atlantic” rationale is needed to bind Europe to the self-appointed global hegemon. Enter the European Union, in its newly disguised—oops, sorry, we meant “expanded”—form of 25 nations. This now baneful enlargement was, (in)famously, pushed through at the sacrifice of the Union’s “deepening,” which is to say its increasing political and social integration following the economic integration that resulted from the Maastricht treaty and, more recently, the adoption of the euro by much of the (old) EU. And who did the pushing? Mostly Britain, of course, aided and abetted by Germany. To be fair to the Germans, however, who have, in fact, been exemplary Europeans throughout the last half century, they always thought—and, indeed, continue to argue—that they had extracted a promise from the UK that deepening would not merely follow enlargement but that the two movements would be concurrent and reciprocal. As it’s turned out, they’ve been neither. Quite the opposite, enlargement has been strategically used to sabotage—actually, permanently derail—the EU’s fundamental institutional integration well into any possibly foreseeable future.
And, guess what? The French have figured that out. Which is why they are so opposed to this pseudo-constitution of a pseudo-sovereign entity whose only apparent rationale (and purpose) is to impose what the French call the “Anglo-Saxon” social model—or, more descriptively, le capitalisme sauvage—on the rest of Europe. Having examined the goods (or, rather, having uncovered the pig in the poke), in other words, the French say, merci, mais non merci. Or, put another way, if this is the charter of a new and “revolutionary” Europe, we prefer the ancien régime.
Of course, what the French really want is for the Eurocrats finally to take seriously the reality, and no longer just the notion, of a united Europe. Which is why all the recent commentary in the Anglo-American media about the referendum in France turning on the issue of Turkish accession to the EU is just so much disinformation as usual. The French have an unusually astute understanding of what the stakes really are in the debates concerning both the European charter and the future of the European Union as a whole. So, let’s be clear at least about this. If the French vote no on May 29, they will not be voting against Turkey. They will be voting against Britain.
And, it goes without saying, against the United States—whose stalking-horse they perceive Britain to be. And it seems that the French are not alone. Last week, the Financial Times inadvertently (or perhaps very shrewdly) illustrated why France is on the verge of rejecting the EU charter put before it. In its May 18 edition, it ran two stories on the same page (p. 7). The first (by John Thornhill in Paris and George Packer in Brussels) was entitled “Opponents of EU constitution back in the lead, French poll shows” and was basically an update on the referendum campaign. It also pointed to a new poll, however, according to which 61 percent of the French believed that “France could renegotiate a better treaty after a No vote.” The newspaper went on to cite the judgment of former prime minister Laurent Fabius (who leads a dissident wing of the Socialist party in opposition to the charter) “that a rejection of the treaty would provoke a ‘salutary crisis’ in Europe producing a better result for France”—as well as, presumably, for the rest of Europe, since the article went on to note that “France and Germany have talked about a ‘relaunch’ of a stalled EU along their preferred lines, with more social and economic harmonisation.”
Indeed, the second story on this page (by Bertrand Benoit), which was placed directly above the one about the French referendum, was from Berlin, and its headline read, “Schröder reaches out to party’s critics of capitalism.” We quote the first two sentences:
German chancellor Gerhard Schröder will next month call for a European initiative to promote public spending on research, set minimum social standards in companies and tighten controls on international financial flows, senior members of his Social Democratic party said yesterday.
The plan, discussed at a meeting with leftwing SPD members of parliament at the chancellery…is the clearest indication yet that Mr. Schröder is reaching out to critics of capitalism within his party.
Too late, undoubtedly, for his own, and his party’s, political fortunes, but perhaps not too late yet for the good of Europe as a whole. A few days after the Financial Times published the report quoted above, Mr. Schröder’s party was decimated in state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia. It was a particularly cruel rejection for the SPD. North Rhine-Westphalia includes that iconic landscape of German industrial power, the Ruhr Valley, and is, in fact, the most industrialized of Germany’s länder—which is also why it has been the heartland of German socialism since the days of…well, actually, since the days of that original German socialist, Karl Marx. In the event, it has been governed by the SPD for almost 40 years. In the elections last week, however, the Christian Democrats got 45 percent of the votes to the socialists’ truly pathetic 37 percent. Mr. Schröder was so traumatized that he called for parliamentary elections a year earlier than they are due—elections, we might add, that he is now easily expected to lose.
What happened in North Rhine-Westphalia? More or less the same thing that happened in France in the 2002 presidential elections, when the candidate of the French socialists, then-prime minister Lionel Jospin, ran on a platform of suppression of his party’s identity. There’s no difference between my platform and that of the incumbent conservative, Jacques Chirac, Mr. Jospin—a former Trotskyist—declared throughout the breadth and depth of France. Well, then, if there’s no difference, la France profonde decided, we’ll vote for somebody who is different. Which is what they did (talk about épater le bourgeois!). When Jean-Marie Le Pen squeaked by Mr. Jospin with a difference of just about two-thirds of one percent and managed (with a total vote of 16.86 percent) to get into the runoff election against Mr. Chirac, the entire global mediacracy jumped to the (unbelievably asinine) conclusion that fascism and, naturallement, antisemitism were, suddenly, not only rearing their ugly heads in France, but on the verge of assuming power.
We all know the end to that particular media-induced “crisis.” Mr. Chirac is now safely ensconced in the Elysée Palace thanks primarily, not to the “rallying” of republican France to his candidacy in the runoff, but to the incredibly stupid campaign strategy of Mr. Jospin. (The ideological disorder plaguing Europe—and, even more so, the United States—is obviously a subject for serious study way beyond the exigencies of journalism. Suffice it to say here that the “rightward lurch” in Europe that has become the daily fodder of the world’s media is more epiphenomenon than phenomenon. The real questions behind the easy headlines are: Why are so many erstwhile French communists voting for Le Pen? Why did the Italian communist party—which, a generation ago, controlled a third of the electorate—collapse? And why are skinheads and neo-Nazis thriving in former strongholds of the SPD?) Needless to say—albeit to the great shock!, shock! of the media, which had predicted their utter and unresurrectable demise at the time of the presidential vote—within a couple of years, the French socialists, newly reconstituted and running as socialists this time, trounced Mr. Chirac’s party in regional elections. Quel miracle? Not quite. The fact is that the peoples of Europe are being battered by—and trying, somehow, to find a way to resist—the Americanization of their societies, which, politically, includes, among other noxious aspects, the cooptation of the left by the structures of state and, what is even worse in the eyes of most people, corporate power.
Which why someone like José Bové is so popular in France or why, to return to the subject at hand, the EU charter is fighting for its life today in the country that gave birth to the idea of a united Europe. The good news is, as we said above, that the French are not alone. The Germans seem to have understood the degree to which the British deceived them, as well as the rest of Europe. Indeed, we believe that a French non tomorrow will be a shot heard round the continent (and across the Atlantic). The truth is that a “yes” vote might very well destroy all hopes for a united Europe for at least another generation. Which is finally why the French know that by voting “no” to the current EU charter, they are voting “yes” for an authentic, and authentically independent, European Union. To echo the current slogan in France, J’aime l’Europe, je vote non.