WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE AS FIT AS A MEGATHERIUM:

The new French revolution (Pepe Escobar, 5/28/05, Asia Times)

Could this be another French revolution, a la 1789? Yes it could, but this time the guillotine is the ballot box, as France marches toward its referendum on Sunday on whether or not to ratify the European constitution. The "non" - according to most polls - is set to win. "Oui" or "non", the European Union has already been thrown into probably its biggest political crisis ever.

From Southeast Asia to the Middle East, from Latin America to China, from India to Russia, the European Union is widely viewed as an example and as a social project to be admired and emulated. What is very difficult for a Chinese, Indian or Thai to understand is how such a crucial decision about the bigger picture, the future of Europe - and the multipolar world - has been hijacked by internal French politics. And this in a country that is one of the founding fathers of modern, post-war Europe. There may be a rainbow of "non" - from the extreme left to the extreme right - but French popular exasperation with President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is the main theme. It has led to the "non" equating Chirac with unbridled neo-liberalism - when Europe, compared to every other continent, is way ahead in social democracy, social protection, workers' rights, educational infrastructure, as well as being an alternative project to the US's social Darwinism. But Chirac is a political opportunist, thus the least credible character capable of selling the dream of a strong, politically unified Europe in a multipolar world.

Jacques Chirac is certainly scum, but you'd think it would matter more that the European experiment is quite literally dying.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 27, 2005 6:55 AM