France and the EU Constitution...

[Blackleaf]

Nos Ancetres Les Gaulois

The most colourful story in what was a busy weekend for EU news was a report that France's floundering yes campaign is hoping that the votes of jungle tribesmen in south America will push support for the constitution over the crucial fifty percent mark.

A hangover from its days as a colonial power, France has dominions (DOM-TOMs) dotted around the globe. Citizens of these dominions are accorded full voting status in referenda - and president Chirac is hoping that these 1.4 million votes will tip the balance in the very tight "home" referendum.

French Guyana's Wayampi Indians make peculiar Frenchmen, but French they are. The women often give birth at ten and are grandparents in their twenties (actually, they sound more like English girls). They wear red loincloths and, rather than striking and grumbling, list hunting and gathering as their favoured pastimes.

However, like their counterparts in mainland France, they and their fellow DOM TOM Frenchmen have been on the receiving end of numerous ill-concealed bribes to ensure they continue their tradition of supporting governments in referenda. Earlier this year, students from the DOM TOMs were granted free annual air tickets to France. Banana growers in the Caribbean received a big subsidy. Copies of the constitution treaty are being shipped to all corners of the French-ruled world, in the hope that like the 1992 Maastricht vote, a couple of hundred thousand votes from citizens who have never set foot in France will edge out dissenting voices in the mother country.

www.eursoc.co . . .

[warden]

And hears hoping after all the tricks pulled out by chirac the answer is still going to be NO

Reminds me a wee bit like the stunt blair tried in the last election,postal voting ,what a scam

[Mr Ed]

Postal voting did actually increase turnout, but not enough sadly.

I wish I could vote...

[warden]

Postal voting did actually increase turnout, but not enough sadly.

I wish I could vote...

639523[/snapback]

The true stories that have came out since the election of rigged postal voting is horendous,people have been put in jail for less(thats if you can find a cell with less than 4 in it already)

You wish you could vote..........i wish i still had all of that still to come

[Mr Ed]

Wasn't it mostly Tory candidates that got in trouble for rigging voting?

[warden]

Wasn't it mostly Tory candidates that got in trouble for rigging voting?

639543[/snapback]

You have been listening to stories put out by Cambells office,i thought you would have known that

[Blackleaf]

French EU 'No' vote firms before last Chirac pitch

By Paul Carrel

PARIS (Reuters) - A new opinion poll on Thursday put France firmly on course to reject the European Union's new constitution, increasing pressure on President Jacques Chirac before his final plea to voters to back the charter.

(Go Jacques go!)

Chirac was due to make a nationwide television address at 8:00 p.m. (1800 GMT), seen as his last chance to persuade voters not to use Sunday's referendum to punish him and his government for unpopular economic policies.

(Go Jacques go!)

A French rejection of the constitution could kill the charter, undermining France's role in the 25-member bloc and causing a crisis of confidence in the EU that delays integration and raises jitters on financial markets.

(Go Jacques go!)

The new survey by the TNS Sofres-Unilog polling group put opposition to the charter at 54 percent of people who had decided how to vote, a one percentage point increase from the group's previous poll almost two weeks earlier.

(Go Jacques go!)

Some 20 percent of those questioned in the poll did not give a view -- a pool of undecided voters which the "Yes" and "No" camps are trying to sway.

(Go Jacques go!)

"It's not the opinion polls that count. It's the vote," former Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius, a leading opponent of the treaty, told France Info radio. "I call for a massive turnout so that there is a meaningful result."

(Go Jacques go!)

Eleven successive polls have put the "No" camp ahead in France. Surveys show rejectionists also clearly ahead in the Netherlands, which votes on the treaty on June 1.

(Go Jacques go!)

Dutch politicians have proposed holding a second vote if the Netherlands rejects the treaty, which sets new rules to make the EU run more smoothly following its enlargement last year. Paris has ruled out a second referendum in France.

(Go Jacques go!)

Underlining markets' sensitivity to the outcome of the vote, the euro rose slightly against the dollar after a spokesman for Nicolas Sarkozy denied the leader of France's ruling conservative party had said the referendum was already lost.

(Go Jacques go!)

Le Figaro newspaper quoted Sarkozy on Wednesday as saying of the outcome: "It will be a small 'No' or a big 'No'."

(Go Jacques go!)

refdesk.co . . .

****france.com

[warden]

French EU 'No' vote firms before last Chirac pitch

By Paul Carrel

PARIS (Reuters) - A new opinion poll on Thursday put France firmly on course to reject the European Union's new constitution, increasing pressure on President Jacques Chirac before his final plea to voters to back the charter.

(Go Jacques go!)

Chirac was due to make a nationwide television address at 8:00 p.m. (1800 GMT), seen as his last chance to persuade voters not to use Sunday's referendum to punish him and his government for unpopular economic policies.

(Go Jacques go!)

A French rejection of the constitution could kill the charter, undermining France's role in the 25-member bloc and causing a crisis of confidence in the EU that delays integration and raises jitters on financial markets.

(Go Jacques go!)

The new survey by the TNS Sofres-Unilog polling group put opposition to the charter at 54 percent of people who had decided how to vote, a one percentage point increase from the group's previous poll almost two weeks earlier.

(Go Jacques go!)

Some 20 percent of those questioned in the poll did not give a view -- a pool of undecided voters which the "Yes" and "No" camps are trying to sway.

(Go Jacques go!)

"It's not the opinion polls that count. It's the vote," former Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius, a leading opponent of the treaty, told France Info radio. "I call for a massive turnout so that there is a meaningful result."

(Go Jacques go!)

Eleven successive polls have put the "No" camp ahead in France. Surveys show rejectionists also clearly ahead in the Netherlands, which votes on the treaty on June 1.

(Go Jacques go!)

Dutch politicians have proposed holding a second vote if the Netherlands rejects the treaty, which sets new rules to make the EU run more smoothly following its enlargement last year. Paris has ruled out a second referendum in France.

(Go Jacques go!)

Underlining markets' sensitivity to the outcome of the vote, the euro rose slightly against the dollar after a spokesman for Nicolas Sarkozy denied the leader of France's ruling conservative party had said the referendum was already lost.

(Go Jacques go!)

Le Figaro newspaper quoted Sarkozy on Wednesday as saying of the outcome: "It will be a small 'No' or a big 'No'."

(Go Jacques go!)

refdesk.co . . .

 

****france.com

641703[/snapback]

Go jacques Go .................and keep bloody going .....infact dont come back at all

[Blackleaf]

From The Sun -

Sneaky Chirac Blair plot

By TREVOR KAVANAGH, Political Editor, and MICHAEL LEA in Paris

CRAFTY Jacques Chirac last night vowed to make Tony Blair share his humiliation following defeat over the EU Constitution.

The French president hatched a plot to force Britain to hold a referendum — even if the French vote “Non” to the treaty on Sunday.

Mr Chirac is facing an embarrassing defeat and Mr Blair is desperate to avoid a similar outcome in Britain, which would destroy his career.

The PM insists there will be no constitution to vote on if France rejects it, with Holland following suit on Wednesday.

But French officials in London were last night suggesting it would be ILLEGAL for Britain to scrap the referendum.

Ambassador Gerard Errera is briefing journalists that Mr Chirac will insist all 25 EU states must go through the process of ratification.

He said a proper debate must be held in ALL European states — even if the answer is “No”.

And he is banking on Sun readers to force Mr Blair into honouring his vow to give them a say.

The ambush was sprung as Mr Chirac was told privately to brace himself for a landslide defeat.

Polls showing the “Non” camp leads by eight per cent.

Last night Mr Chirac told French voters to vote Yes to “obtain a political Europe capable of bringing about a genuine European power.”

He said approval was crucial “for the future of your children.”

Mr Blair is struggling to get off the hook by arguing that the constitution will be dead if the French vote against it.

But a Cabinet minister admitted nobody knows who will sign its death warrant — or when.

www.thesun.co.uk

[Babs]

Oh, goody, Chirac is in trouble. Awwwwww. A landslide defeat! You don't say....

Where's that super power deal, EU?

Edited May 27, 2005 by Babs

[warden]

Oh, goody, Chirac is in trouble. Awwwwww. A landslide defeat! You don't say.... 

Where's that super power deal, EU?

644033[/snapback]

Its what i have been saying for months on the board

Chirac is a sleaze bag,he knows it is the end of a pathetic dream,and because blair coulnd`t jump in with both feet (because of the british public )he is willing to take doww a so called friend with him

Just imagin if they had got their wish and all went ahead,a couple of months down the line one of the heads has a ding dong with chirac and you know what your fate would be

Let them get on with their petty squables and pipe dreams and let us be ,why change a system that is working ?

[Celumnaz]

Last night Mr Chirac told French voters to vote Yes to “obtain a political Europe capable of bringing about a genuine European power.”

What's with the european quest for power? Aren't we supposed to be all equals in this world?

He said approval was crucial “for the future of your children.”

I've heard something similar before... something for the children... hmm... can't place it, but I know I've heard something similar somewhere...

[Babs]

Yeah, that gets me. They preach all this equality and behind closed doors attempt to get power to go up against the U.S.. Hypocritical, if you ask me.

...and I don't want to forget, I've seen 'the green eyed monster' there too.

Edited May 28, 2005 by Babs

[warden]

Yeah, that gets me. They preach all this equality and behind closed doors attempt to get power to go up against the U.S.. Hypocritical, if you ask me.

...and I don't want to forget, I've seen 'the green eyed monster' there too.

645080[/snapback]

Time to party tommorrow when the French vote NON NON NON

THEN THE SAME AGAIN ON WEDENSDAY

[Babs]

Hey warden!...happy to see you back.

[warden]

Hey warden!...happy to see you back.

645085[/snapback]

You shure know how to cheer a sad guy ur Babs what a crap week

[Walken]

Blair is already on his way down. He has been since the election. I predict he'll be in for a year or two before he hands the torch to Brown.

[warden]

Blair is already on his way down. He has been since the election. I predict he'll be in for a year or two  before he hands the torch to Brown.

645123[/snapback]

I dont think he will last that long,watch his own party and Chirac stab him in the back

[Blackleaf]

From The Guardian -

Alien nation

Half the French population is living on another planet in its resistance to the EU constitution, writes Jon Henley Wednesday

France may be correct to say "NON" to EU Constitution - but it shouldn't reject it because it is "Anglo-Saxon." As Britain has proved, the Anglo-Saxon model is superior to Continental Europe's.

May 18, 2005 - The French debate on the European Union constitution, or to be more accurate the arguments put forward by the mainstream left against that much-maligned treaty, is slowly forcing me to conclude that there exists a place called Planet France.

The arguments of the far right I can deal with: they are essentially the same old British eurosceptic arguments of loss of sovereignty, decline of national identity and so on. They (the British views)are at least consistent and, sort of, coherent.

Similarly, the arguments of the extreme left I can at least recognise: Europe is, bien sur, just one big capitalist plot by the dastardly owners of the means of production to maximise the oppression of the proletariat.

Where the debate removes itself to Planet France (losing me, for one, in the process) is where the Mainstream Left No, which we shall henceforth call MLN, steps in. And all the polls show that the MLN is where France's May 29 referendum will be won or lost: more than 70% of centre-right voters are preparing to vote Oui, while more than 55% of centre-left voters presently plan to vote Non.

For your average Brit who has lived through Mrs Thatcher and observed with more than passing interest the activities of Mr Blair, the MLN lives on Planet France. This planet is ruled by Laurent Fabius, a former socialist prime minister who a) was not best known for his concern for the oppressed proletariat and negotiated several of the past treaties on which the constitution is based.

Now that he has moved to Planet France, however, Mr Fabius and his followers have understood that the constitution is in fact a blueprint for a liberal, free-market, Anglo-Saxon Europe of untrammelled competition that will lead to French companies going under, French jobs being lost, and French public services and benefits being destroyed.

Viewed from Planet France, therefore, the French electorate has a democratic and, above all, a social duty to reject the treaty, at which point the rest of the continent will instantly come to its senses and realise that France had it right all along. A new constitution will promptly be negotiated, incorporating all France's concerns.

The belief system of Planet France has several curious characteristics:

- It believes that economic liberalism (or a market economy) is the end of civilisation as we know it, despite the fact it is the sole economic system so far developed by mankind that has actually been shown to work;

- It believes the new constitution will create an EU based on economic liberalism and the free market. This, despite the fact that economic liberalism and the free market were enshrined in the first ever Treaty of Rome in 1957, and that this free-market EU has done much to cushion France (and everyone else in Europe) from the worst effects of globalisation;

- The MLN also believes that the French economic and social model must at all costs be protected and preserved, when the French economic and social model boasts an unemployment rate of 10% more or less unchanged since 1983, lower-than-average growth, falling purchasing power, and a health system running a €12bn deficit;

- The liberal Anglo-Saxon model must be avoided at all costs, even though the liberal Anglo-Saxon model (in Britain at any rate) boasts an unemployment rate half that of France's, a minimum wage raised by 40% in five years, health spending doubled over the same period, steadily increasing purchasing power, years of sustained growth, low interest rates and 2 million children lifted from below the poverty line;

- It also believes that France can singlehandedly resist the process known as globalisation, and has a moral duty to do so, rather than seeking to adapt to it (at its crudest, it seems to believe it is possible to distribute wealth without first creating it);

- Finally, the MLN believes that if France rejects a constitution that France demanded, negotiated and even, under the former president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, wrote, and under which France's clout within the EU would be substantially increased, it will be possible for it to persuade the EU's 24 other member states, none of which live on Planet France, that the above claims are true.

All of this allows Mr Fabius to say, as he repeatedly does: "France has a choice: if it wants a liberal Europe, it can vote Yes to the treaty. If it wants a social Europe, it must vote No. If you believe in Europe, say Non." It is, frankly, Planet France-speak

.

(And before anyone puts finger to keyboard, I am not saying that Britain is perfect. What I am saying is that it has a fair case for arguing that its philosophy (of adaptation) in the face of globalisation is probably faring better than France's (resistance), and that if public services in Britain seem on the whole to be gradually improving, it is at least in part because the money is being generated to throw at them. In France, the reverse is the case. Yes, today I would rather be treated in a French hospital than a British one - but in five years' time, I'm not so sure.)

So Planet France is a strange place. The really worrying thing about it, though, is that according to yesterday's opinion polls, somewhere between 51% and 53% of the French currently live there.

Quel magnifique pays, quand-meme.

theguardian.co.uk

[Blackleaf]

A great mystery - why is France so against the Anglo-Saxon model?

French believe the Anglo-Saxon model must be avoided at all costs, but are they right? Britain's anglo-saxon model is pro-free market but also has some level of socialism, but it's light weight. It's time to ask yourselves what you believe in. I remember hearing some French views about Britain and our social model which were grossly wrong and factually incorrect! Here are some general key facts.

> an unemployment rate half that of France's

> faster job creation and company set-up

> free health and education

> a minimum wage raised by 40% in five years

> a minimum wage which is higher than in France

> a national debt level 3.5 times less than France

> taxes are considerably lower than in France

> unemployment benefit and support to get back to work

> health spending doubled over the same period

> steadily increasing purchasing power

> years of sustained growth

> low interest rates

> 2 million children lifted from below the poverty line

> largest dynamic group of small businesses in Europe

> the eu's highest concentration of emerging entrepreneurs

> the eu's largest share of leading companies

> the eu's largest international investor in key continents

> 4th business friendly destination in the world as opposed to Frances 44th

> roughly 23/25 holidays a year (plus several more are compulsory)

[Erikl]

The french people are against anything which is not "french".

In contrast to other European nations, who might see themselves as better than other nations (there is nothing wrong with this - every nation sees it's culture as better than other cultures, or it would have taken on itself a culture seen as superior to their own), the french also believe that no other culture is worth looking at. If it isn't french, then it's of no importance.

Therefore there should be no surprise why the french would be against anything which wasn't "made\invented in France", including plans regarding the future of Europe.

This is also the reason why the french are so unpopular in the rest of Europe - if you have no respect to other cultures, don't expect to be very liked by others .

Edited May 28, 2005 by Erikl

[Mr Ed]

Blair said that he would hold the vote regardless of what the French result is, before chirac allegedly said this. I would not trust the accuracy of this article as it is from 'The Sun'. Blair will hold a vote, regardless of what chirac says or what he now wants. Most of the British public have a low opinion of France, so chirac 'threats' will not be cared much about.

[warden]

Blair said that he would hold the vote regardless of what the French result is, before chirac allegedly said this. I would not trust the accuracy of this article as it is from 'The Sun'. Blair will hold a vote, regardless of what chirac says or what he now wants. Most of the British public have a low opinion of France, so chirac 'threats' will not be cared much about.

645362[/snapback]

You know Mr Ed why blair hasnt had one yet ,its bacause he was holding of untill he thougt he could win it.

He will be pushed into having the vote know where he wants one or not

Chirac knows how to play the game more than most,he will not let this opertunity pass him when his country vote NON

[Blackleaf]

PARIS (Reuters)

Sun May 29, 2005 2:08 AM ET

The French began voting on Sunday in a referendum on the European Union's new constitution with opinion polls pointing to a rejection that supporters say could kill the charter and weaken France's role in Europe.

Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) across mainland France. Overseas voters cast their ballots on Saturday.

France has almost 42 million registered voters. First exit polls projecting the result are expected when polling stations close at 2000 GMT. The Interior Ministry is expected to issue an official estimate for the result after 2100 GMT.

The constitution was signed by EU leaders last October in Rome after long and tough negotiations. It sets rules for the EU that are intended to make decision-making easier after the bloc's enlargement from 15 to 25 member states in May 2004.

The charter requires the approval of all member states to go into force. If it were rejected, the EU would continue to operate under its current rules but they were designed for a smaller Union and voting could soon become paralyzed.

source: today.reuters.com . . .

[warden]

NON NON NON da de da da da da da dada ,da da da dadeda