MUST BE THE ROPE-A-DOPE:

Protective father of a new Europe hovers over a difficult birth (Charles Bremner, 5/25/05, Times of London)

THE “father” of the European constitution, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, paused to savour the irony of France’s revolt against his baby.

“If France votes ‘no’, that might encourage a British ‘yes’. The British might then say, ‘Now we can take the lead in Europe’,” he mused to The Times.

Aged 79, aristocratic and utterly self-assured, the former French President is the embodiment of why his country is split ahead of Sunday’s referendum on the EU treaty. Yesterday’s polls indicated that 53 per cent are preparing to vote “non”.

Monsieur le President, as he is known in Chamalières, the Giscard fiefdom in the Auvergne highlands, is the grand technocrat who ensured that France boxed above its weight when he presided over the two-year Brussels Convention...

Except that they haven't thrown a meaningful punch since Napoleon was in charge.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 24, 2005 10:56 PM