70 DAYS TO HALT 200 YEARS OF DECLINE?:

Chirac told: halt France’s decline or forget the EU: With 10 weeks until the French vote on Europe’s constitution, the ‘yes’ camp is losing ground. (Hugh Schofield, 3/13/05, Sunday Herald)

By Friday morning the consensus had settled: the mass movement had exceeded the unions’ hopes. More than one million workers – including many, unusually, in the private sector – had downed tools. The government of President Jacques Chirac, commentators agreed, should be seriously rattled.

Among the regular alphabet soup of union acronyms worn on stickers and baseball caps in Paris on Thursday, two new slogans caught the eye. One group of protesters was adorned with banners proclaiming the unions’ support for the capital’s 2012 Olympic bid: this an attempt to mitigate the harm caused by a public transport shutdown on the very day of the International Olympic Committee inspectors’ visit.

But it must be said that few in France share the predominant British view that the day of strikes will damage the city’s application. Socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoe even said the protests would help the Paris bid, by showing a vibrant democracy in action.

But for Chirac, and his long-suffering prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the banners that counted were elsewhere. They were proudly arrayed along a substantial section of the cortege – and though their message flew in the face of the official policy of the opposition socialists and most trade unions, nobody on the march seemed to mind. The words were: Non à la constitution Européenne!

It is 10 weeks until France’s referendum on the EU’s constitution – an electoral rendezvous that leaders across the continent know is crucial for the treaty’s ratification. A victory for the “yes” camp would maintain the momentum set in Spain last month, and give hope to advocates preparing to campaign in Britain next year. But a rejection in France – the historic core of the European Union – would be a disaster.

None would feel the catastrophe of a defeat more than Chirac. He has staked his reputation on showing France to be once again in the vanguard of European construction. Repudiation would consign the past two years of his presidency to limp decline. On the plus side are the coalition of mainstream parties which back his call for a “yes” vote, as well as opinion polls that show some 60% of the public to be in favour of the treaty.

But on the down side – and making Chirac and his government nervous – is a mood of surly discontent on the street.

Until the last Frenchman takes his last breath there will be a mood of surly discontent.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 13, 2005 11:46 AM