FRANCE'S MAY 29 REFERENDUM ON EU CONSTITUTION: THE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 002942 SIPDIS SENSITIVE DEPT ALSO FOR EUR/WE, EUR/ERA, EUR/PPD, DRL/IL AND INR/EUR AND EB DEPT OF LABOR FOR ILAB DEPT OF COMMERCE FOR ITA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV ELAB EU FR PINR SOCI ECON SUBJECT: FRANCE'S MAY 29 REFERENDUM ON EU CONSTITUTION: THE "SOCIAL" VS. THE "LIBERAL" IN THE REFERENDUM DEBATE REF: A. (A) PARIS 2863 ¶B. (B) PARIS 2825 ¶C. (C) PARIS 2663 ¶D. (D) BRUSSELS 1556 ¶E. (E) PARIS 2604 ¶F. (F) PARIS 2516 AND PREVIOUS SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED -- PLEASE HANDLE ACCORDINGLY SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (SBU) Despite urgings from Jacques Chirac and most of France's mainstream political leaders to cast ballots on the EU Constitution's merits in the May 29 referendum, many French voters remain focused on unemployment and other pressing economic and social issues (reftel B). Diminished purchasing power, urban tensions and insecurity, job flight, lack of opportunity, and fraying social services infrastructure are issues much closer to most French voters than EU institutional issues addressed in the constitution. Many blame an expanded Europe, driven by "liberal" (open society/free market) ideas that is in turn part of a global, competitive economy as threatening France's control over its national destiny and its much vaunted social model, to which many in France remain deeply attached. For these voters a 'no' to the EU Constitution May 29 is a vote to protect a French way of life that many feel is under siege. END SUMMARY. FOCUSED ON DOMESTIC CONCERNS -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Since March 18, 22 polls in a row have shown that among voters who say they have decided how they will vote, a majority say they plan to vote 'no' in France's May 29 referendum on the proposed EU constitution. Many of these ordinary Frenchmen and women are uncertain and apprehensive. They are focused on their ever more straitened economic prospects and declining quality of life. They are worried that the constitution and an enlarged Europe will make things worse for them, specifically, by imposing a "liberal" dismantlement of the "French social model" (welfare state) that they look to for maintaining their well-being. President Chirac (see reftel A for his latest effort in tandem with Chancellor Schroeder) and the rest of France's pro-'yes' establishment have so far made little headway in convincing these voters, particularly those whose political sympathies are left-of-center, that the proposed constitution protects the French social model rather than undermines it. CONVERGENCE OF THE YES ARGUMENTS -------------- ¶3. (SBU) The different 'yes' camps have recognized that reassuring ordinary voters that France's system of state-provided services is safe under the proposed constitution is key to turning the electorate's attention away from domestic worries. Supporters of the proposed constitution are confident that, if voters can be brought to focus on the merits of the proposed charter, some of the French public's traditional support for Europe will re-assert itself. Through the first month of the referendum debate (reftel F) (beginning March 4 when President Chirac announced the May 29 date for the referendum),the leaders of France's three centrist political currents emphasized different reasons for voting 'yes,' and stressed their differences over how best to tackle the very same social and economic problems that are besetting ordinary citizens. This domestic-political-bickering-as-usual added to voters' dismissal of the political class and fueled in part the rising tide of 'no' (reftel C). ¶4. (SBU) Following a TV appearance by President Chirac April 14 (reftel E) that laid bare voters' domestic concerns and their suspicion of the constitution's liberal bias, spokespersons for all the 'yes' camps in TV appearances and press interviews began highlighting the proposed constitution's "social" dimension and its provisions for protecting "states rights" in maintaining social and public services. In sum, all who advocate 'yes', whether of left or right, are now stressing the "social" in the "social, market economy" (an operative phrase that appears a number of times in the proposed constitution). Those who advocate 'no,' are stressing the "market" -- alleging that the "ultra-liberal" constitution would leave France helpless in a huge, formless and "savagely capitalist" Europe, unable to maintain the social services and safety-nets that French citizens have long considered rights to be protected. COMMENT: TWO CONTENDING THEORIES -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Among the chattering classes in Paris, two leading theories are making the rounds, both purporting to explain the significance of the confrontation between 'yes' and 'no' among the French: "biting the bullet of Thatcherism" and "re-run of April 21." ¶6. (SBU) For proponents of the first, the choice facing the French on May 29 really is between a "social" versus a "liberal" socio-economic model, between a no-longer-affordable "European social model" and a gentler version of the "Anglo-Saxon economic model." Proponents of this theory stress that the proposed constitution does, overall, indeed enshrine liberal principles -- and that is precisely why so many French people are against it. According to this view, in an expanded Europe dominated by "post-Thatcher countries" (UK, Spain, the Nordics, and the states that had been under Soviet domination) France remains a "pre-Thatcher country" (along with Germany and Italy),and voting 'yes' to the proposed constitution signifies assenting to a deep shift in social and economic model for France. Voting 'no,' on the other hand, signifies defending a complex set of habits deeply ingrained in French society, which are in fact incompatible with "biting the bullet" of necessary reform. The deep split on the French center-left is seen as between those who recognize the necessity of this shift (and believe social solidarity can be defended from within an open, competitive economy),and those who don't. ¶7. (SBU) On April 21, 2002, in the first round of France's most recent presidential election, well over half the voters stayed home, cast blank ballots or voted for marginal, "protest" candidates. Those who see the referendum as shaping up into a "re-run of April 21", see in this voting pattern evidence of massive alienation and disaffection among the majority of the electorate. In this view, well over half the voters cast votes "against the system" on April 21, and could well do so again on May 29. For proponents of this theory, 'yes' versus 'no' reveals the deep gulf between the empowered and the disempowered, those who feel represented and those who do not feel represented in France's political system. This "crisis of representation" in France's democracy, according to this theory's proponents, could well doom a constitution that, it is generally agreed, would bring more democracy to Europe's governing institutions (reftel D, para 13). END COMMENT. ROSENBLATT