THE ANGRY WHITE MALE, FRENCH VERSION:

French singing song of angry men (Elaine Sciolino, 5/24/05, The New York Times)

Both the left and the right have preyed on voters' fears that the constitution is an "ultra-liberal" treaty one ruled by the market economy - that will rob them of their generous health, employment, educational and pension benefits.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far right National Front, which opposes the treaty, has weighed in with another reason to oppose it. He has said (incorrectly) that the treaty's ratification would mean Turkey's admission to the EU and waves of "non-European" Turkish immigrants, gypsies from Romania and Bulgaria, and other "miserable native populations of the east."

The campaign underscores another political phenomenon as well: a vast gap between the French elite and ordinary voters. "There is a real division in French society today between France from on high and France from below," said Jean-Paul Fournier, the center-right mayor of Nîmes, who supports the constitution, but whose citizens voted in 1992 against the EU treaty that ushered in the euro.

In a poll in the Midi Libre newspaper released on May 20, 61 percent of the population of the French province of Gard, which includes Nîmes, said it would vote no.

Fournier and his administrators have lobbied for the constitution in neighborhoods throughout the city, which suffers from more than 15 percent unemployment and where both the Communist Party and the National Front are strong. In some of its tough suburbs, unemployment is as high as 40 percent.

One of the challenges Fournier faces in selling the constitution is that it promises nothing tangible and immediate. "I get asked all the time, 'What's in this for France?"' he said in an interview in his office. "The problem is that I can't say to the unemployed worker, 'If you vote for the constitution, you will get a job.' I would be lying. I tell them this is a vision for the long-term, for their children and grandchildren."

Patrice Couderc, secretary general of the CFDT union of the Gard region, added another angle: "Our politicians have done a great job of blaming the European Union when things go bad, but never praising it when its money helps build a bridge or a hospital, when it imposes an improvement in working conditions or equal rights for women

Filthy commoners...

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 23, 2005 11:32 PM