Following France's dramatic "No" vote on the E.U. "constitution," Claire Berlinski tries to talk some sense into Eurocrats and Europe-watchers. It'll probably fail, but it's a strong effort.
According to those dismayed by the outcome of the referendum, last weekend's no vote represented a mix of incoherent sentiments, chiefly a frustration with unemployment, a rejection of market reforms and a widespread loathing of the government of President Jacques Chirac. These issues are all real. But unemployment in France is a long-term structural problem. It would be a problem whether or not the French voted for the constitution. As for Chirac? Everyone has always disliked him.Posted by Alan at June 7, 2005 12:10 PMThe one thing the vote surely expressed is the unwillingness of the French to cede any more of their national identity to the fantasy of a unified Europe. It is a fantasy, of course, of very old standing. Pope Innocent III's failed attempt to unify fractious medieval Europe was an expression of much the same fantasy. No effort to unify Europe has ever succeeded. Most have ended in blood.
Nobody in the French elite has been prepared to say what the French electorate has said clearly -- that, even if the E.U. makes sense economically, it makes no sense historically. It reflects neither the will of a single nation-state, nor the will of an empire, based on the ability of a central political entity to dominate its periphery, nor does it reflect some form of established European identity with deep historic roots. Even the Austro-Hungarian Empire had in Austrian power -- diminished as it was after 1866 -- a stable and powerful center.
All of European history -- all of world history -- argues against a federation with no force to back it up and no way to impose its will on member states. The French voters recognized this even as the French elite failed to. The E. U. is in effect an empty empire. The only national identities up for grabs are the old national identities of the chief nation-states of Europe. And no matter how hard the E.U. bureaucrats try to turn the French identity into a European one, the people just aren't buying it.