Ratification at risk?” “

“On 29 May France has a crucial date with Europe, and with its history. And history does not proceed without memory”: so former President of the Commission Jacques Delors , appeals to the past and looks to the future to try to convince his compatriots to vote “yes” in the referendum for the ratification of the Constitutional Treaty. The issue is at the centre of all political discussion at the present time: it dominates the front pages of the papers and there is no French television station that has not devoted some “special” to the vote at the end of May. The heavyweights of politics and culture have entered the fray to support either the one or the other of the two sides in the battle. Nor has the President of the Republic stood idly by. Chirac discuSSES THE CONSTITUTION WITH THE YOUNG. On Thursday 14 April, in prime time television, on the flagship channel Tf1, Jacques Chirac discussed the European Constitution, the legal limits of its text and its value for achieving a united Europe with eighty young people between the ages of 18 and 25. Chirac knew very well what was at stake in the meeting: trying to convince the majority of the French to vote “yes”. Yet according to the opinion polls, the majority are still inclined to vote “no”. The tension in the country is so high that many criticisms were focused on the transmission on Tf1: first of all on the decision to entrust the conducting of the debate to showbusiness personalities rather than to journalists. The President of the Movement for France, Philippe de Villiers, went so far as to speak of a “programme veering between showbusiness and marketing”. “It was just propaganda”, complained the number two of the Socialist Patry, Laurent Fabius. According to the leader of the National Front, Jean-Marie LE Pen, Chirac “used the Elysée as if it were a television studio”. On the other hand, Chirac more than once declared that “France cannot and must not renounce its role as a founder country of the Community”. DIVIDES PARTIES. Yet uncertainty continues to reign in Paris, as in the rest of the country. At least ten opinion polls published since mid-March have constantly registered a fall in support for the Treaty. The latest figures, published earlier this week by the Ipsos and CSA polling agencies, assign between 53% and 54% to the “no” camp. Various issues intersect in the debate: the significance itself of the Constitution; the benefits that France may derive from the EU; the possible entry of Turkey into the EU; the results of the Directive for the liberalization of the services sector (“Bolkestein Directive”), which would threaten, according to the detractors of the Constitution, French economic development and employment. In this sense the task of the “yes campaign” is clearly an uphill one: the main parties (UDF, UMP, Socialists, Greens…) are all internally divided; public opinion is increasingly inclined to judge the Treaty in the light of France’s domestic problems. “The argument of the paralysis of the EU, in the event of the rejection of the Treaty, seems to convince no one”, said Pierre Giacometti, head of Ipsos. EUROPE LOOKS TO FRANCE. One of the foreign testimonials invited to France by the “yes campaign” has, on the contrary, insisted on the European destiny linked to the key French referendum. Visiting Rennes on Monday 11 April, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said “the French decision is very important; it is no longer just a question of domestic policy. The future of Europe depends on this decision”. His view is echoed by Michel Barnier, Foreign Minister of the centre-right government led by Jean-Pierre Raffarin (“The Constitution affirms and guarantees the French values”, declared the latter at Antibes last Monday, during his tour to drum up support for the yes note in the referendum). According to Barnier, who says he is “worried” by the polls, it is essential “not to confuse problems like the membership of Turkey and social anger with the vote on the Constitution”. “REASONABLE AND REASONED APPROACH”. Efforts to boost the yes vote are being stepped up. After the support of the Treaty expressed by the French bishops, the European Movement and the Federalist groups have entered the field for the yes vote. Two evening debates on the question, organized at Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament, at the beginning of the week, drew a public of over 500. In the Pasteur University of the same city, the professor for economics Francis Kern has expressed his opposition to the Constitution “because its third part is coercive and ultraliberal, and far removed from the vision of the founding fathers” of the EEC. The leading dailies “Le Monde” and “Libération” have devoted whole pages to the forthcoming vote and “Le Figaro” has published some fifty interviews with French and European personalities. The Catholic daily “la Croix” is consecutively publishing the articles of the Treaty and inviting calm analysis. “We wish to recall that on 29 May – writes Francois ERNENWEIN in the paper on 13 April – the French will simply be called to say yes or no to a constitutional treaty. We need to restore calm, prefer a reasonable and reasoned approach and continue to speak of Europe”.