FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

Why the workers in prosperous, Americanised France will vote 'no'

By John Lichfield in Flins, Ile de France
24 May 2005


This could be New Jersey-sur-Seine: a series of Edge Cities on the western flank of the Paris conurbation. Factories, offices, shopping malls and tens of thousands of dormer-bungalows are scattered along the once beautiful Seine valley.

Change, and resistance to it, are the core unspoken issues in Sunday's French referendum on the EU constitution.

The "no" camp, leading in the polls with five days to go, has mobilised fears that a stronger, wider European Union menaces the French way of life, from job security, to abortion, to baguettes.

If you visit Flins, or Elisabethville, or any of the other new-industrial-commuter towns west of Paris, you might think that the old France of sleepy villages and vibrant urban culture in large towns was already dead.

Here the automobile rules. Shopping malls extend for hundreds of acres beside the A13 motorway. The Renault factory near Flins ­ one of the largest and most modern car factories in the world ­ covers almost four square miles, twice the size of Monaco.

Renault, and Peugeot-Citroen, which has a vast factory at Poissy 12 miles away, are among the great economic successes of France. Renault, and its Japanese subsidiary, Nissan, hopes to become one of the dominant car-makers in the world in the next 10 years.

That expansive strategy is based on global trade and the opening of European markets and investment to the east: precisely the issues that part of the French left, and the French far right, have turned against the EU constitution.

On the second stage of The Independent's "tour de France" before Sunday's vote, we have left struggling, "old industrial" Lorraine and come here to the booming, Americanised, Renault-dominated Seine valley.

Here, of all places, you might think, calls for protectionism and fear of change would fall on deaf ears. The opinion polls suggest otherwise. In central Paris ­ now mostly wealthy, cosmopolitan and professional ­ the "yes" is far ahead. In the outer western, blue-collar suburbs, the "no" looks likely to be victorious.

I met David, 36, who works in the Renault factory at Flins, coming out of the company sports centre. He was a definite "no".

"This is a constitution for breaking workers' rights, what few we still have," he said. "It is a constitution written by and for the bosses, so that they can move work out of France to low-paid countries like Romania, or bring Romanian workers here on Romanian wages." But, I objected, all the free trade and competition language in the constitution comes from the previous EU treaties, going back to 1958. Maybe, he said, but the lowly paid Poles, and the Czechs and the Slovaks and the Romanians were not in the EU in 1958.

The change of leadership in Renault, with the accession to the top job of a Franco-Brazilian of Lebanese extraction, Carlos Ghosn, has crystallised the fears of many Renault workers. M. Ghosn made his reputation at Nissan as a cost-cutter. There is also suspicion about Renault's brightest new idea, the Logan, a cheap, basic car stripped of electronic gadgetry, aimed at motorists in the developing world.

Although the Logan will use many parts made in France for other Renault models, it is being assembled in Romania and Russia. "It is a test car, an experiment," David said. "Once they have the factories in eastern Europe working as they want, they will shift the assembly of other cars away from France. In Romania, they earn ¤50 a week. How can we compete with that?" The minimum wage, or SMIC, in France is about ¤266 (£183) for a 35-hour week.

Jean-Christophe, 40, formerly a Peugeot car worker, now working on a temporary contract for a transport company, complained that many Renault and Peugeot workers ­ once blue-collar aristocrats in France ­ had already been reduced to the minimum wage.

"The days when Renault and Peugeot hired full-time workers on proper wages are dead," he said. " You go there now and all they have to offer is temporary contracts on the SMIC. At the end of three months, or five months, if car sales are down, boom, you're gone."

The standard criticism of the French economy is that it has a "rigid" labour market and excessive protection for workers. In truth, this is still the case in the public sector but has been broken down by the big industrial groups, like Renault. The anti-European, anti-globalist mood of French blue-collar workers is based partly on fear of change, but also on bitter resentment at changes that have already happened.

And New Jersey-sur-Seine is not so American as it first looks. In the soulless suburban sprawl of Elisabethville, there was a long queue outside an "artisanal" bakery and patisserie with wares as varied and mouth-watering as in a posh quartier of Paris.

Brussels looks into the abyss as 'No' vote surges
By Stephen Castle in Brussels
25 May 2005


Polls predicting that France and the Netherlands will reject the European constitution raise doubts about plans to expand the EU and threaten to paralyse decision making.

A survey in France yesterday for Paris Match magazine, showing 54 per cent against the constitution with 46 per cent in favour, became the tenth poll in 10 days to put the "no" camp ahead. Meanwhile, a succession of surveys in the Netherlands has given opponents of the constitution an even larger majority.

France holds its referendum on Sunday and the Netherlands will vote three days later. A "no" vote would derail a host of plans and hinder efforts to admit Turkey to the EU. "It is hard to predict what would happen though clearly there would be a period of confusion and shock," said one diplomat.

All 25 EU countries need to ratify the constitution for it to come into force. Diplomats believe that the amount of damage caused by a "no" vote will depend on the size of the majority and whether the French President, Jacques Chirac, completely rules out a second vote.

As a big power and a driving force in European integration, a French "no" would be more devastating than a rejection from the Netherlands, which is a fellow founder member but a smaller nation. Were M. Chirac to pronounce the constitution dead, it would, in effect, be so.

The French and Dutch verdicts pose athreat to the EU's agenda, one reinforced by the turmoil in Germany where elections loom in September, and in Italy, which is in financial and political crisis.

Next month EU leaders were due to agree on spending plans for 2007-13, and how much each nation should contribute. That debate was already deadlocked over the level of spending and on the future of the British budget rebate.

The Netherlands is demanding a cut in its contributions - a big Dutch referendum issue - and France has the British rebate in its sights. The two countries will have little room for manoeuvre and, facing elections in September it is almost impossible to see the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, agreeing any terms on offer.

Meanwhile, an attempt to open up the EU's lucrative market in services has provoked huge opposition in France, fuelling the "no" campaign. This proposed legislation - a flagship initiative - is due to be revised later this year but, after its referendum, Paris may not be content to tinker with it and may try to sink it.

However, Turkey has most reason to fear the referendum results. Opposition to its ambitions to join the EU has featured heavily in both French and Dutch "no" campaigns, where there has been a delayed reaction to the last EU enlargement. EU governments still have to agree by unanimity on a negotiating mandate before talks with Ankara can open on 3 October. That means the talks could be blocked and, as one EU official put it with under-statement: "Nothing that has happened in the referendum campaigns so far will have increased European politicians' appetite for more extensive enlargement."

A similar, though smaller threat, faces Croatia, which is still fighting to get the go-ahead for EU membership talks and whose ambitions could get caught in the crossfire.

And, though Romania and Bulgaria have been given the green light to join the EU in 2007, that could be held up by a year if member states rule that insufficient progress has been made on reforms.

The confusion could last several weeks. In the immediate aftermath of the votes, Luxembourg, which holds the presidency of the EU, is likely to insist that the ratification process should continue even in the event of two "no" votes.

But such a position is unlikely to survive an EU summit in June. Leaders of several nations which still face referendums know that this would mean asking their voters to back a constitution which would most likely not come into force.

Hell, Iraq will have a functioning democratic constitution before Europe does. Prolly Iran, Syria, Cuba, and a unified Korea will, too.

Functionally, there will be a few cabinet shake-ups, and the entry of new states into the EU will stall for a while, ...

French 'yes' camp in last-ditch effort to save EU referendum

Wed May 25,11:50 AM ET

Torn between resignation and desperation, supporters of the EU constitution in France were engaged in a last-ditch attempt to reverse the lead of the "no" camp ahead of this weekend's referendum.

With the last 10 opinion polls all suggesting that the constitutional treaty will be rejected in Sunday's vote, the first signs of despondency and recrimination were creeping into the "yes" campaign.

Nicolas Sarkozy, head of the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, told an ill-tempered cabinet meeting on Tuesday that he no longer believed the "yes" would win, a colleague told AFP.

"I keep on telling you that the thing is lost," Sarkozy was quoted as saying in an angry outburst.

Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president who led the drafting of the text, said the failures of the "yes" campaign were partly the result of a lack of European enthusiasm on the part of the country's leaders.

"Our current rulers are of course believers in the idea of Europe, but in their heart of hearts they are not men and women who are inspired by a European feeling," he told Les Echos newspaper.

"When we encounter difficulties, they are too ready to blame Europe. So it is hardly a surprise that the French have a bad idea of the European Union," the 79-year-old former president said.

But speaking on the LCI television news channel, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said that with 20 percent of the electorate telling pollsters they were undecided it was foolish to give up hope.

"It's not over yet. It's not over until the people have spoken. It's always the case that many people leave it till the last minute to make up their minds," said Raffarin, who is widely expected to leave office after Sunday whatever the outcome of the referendum.

Supporters of the constitution were banking on last-minute televised interventions by President Jacques Chirac and the former Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin to shore up their vote.

Speaking on the main television evening news programme Tuesday, Jospin -- a widely respected figure on the French left -- said that a "no" vote would leave France isolated and its European partners bewildered.

Listing the political leaders who back the "no" -- including far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, Communist and Trotskyist party chiefs and the dissident Socialist Laurent Fabius -- he said they could have no coherent alternative to the constitution.

"All these 'no's are incompatible and absolutely unrealistic ... What are we going to do with them -- put them in a cocktail shaker, mix them up, then ask the president to present this shaker to our astonished European partners?

"I think such an attitude will not just isolate France but leave us incomprehensible to the other Europeans," Jospin said.

Chirac was due to appear on national television on Thursday evening.

Drawn up after four years of laborious negotiations, the EU's constitution is meant to streamline decision-making in the expanding bloc but must first be ratified by all 25 member states.

In France approval was initially seen as a foregone conclusion, but over two months of campaigning the opposition has surged in polls -- buoyed by widespread public discontent, fear of unemployment and falling real wages, and anxiety about new competition from the low-cost economies of eastern Europe.

A "no" vote in so important a country as France would trigger a period of paralysis inside the European Union, and have huge repercussions on the domestic political scene.

Tribes of the left gather to celebrate a vote against hated EU constitution

While France prepares for its European treaty referendum, John Lichfield has been travelling around the country listening to the debate. Today he reports from Martigues in the south

By John Lichfield in Martigues
26 May 2005


The hall resounded with 6,000 voices chanting the war cry of the French left. "Tous ensemble, Tous ensemble, hoy, hoy." (All together, all together. There is no known translation for hoy, hoy.) They were all here, or almost all of them - the many tribes of the Gauche Française.

There were the Communists, the Socialists, the Greens, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (Trotskyist), the Republican Movement of the Left (nationalist), the Radical Party of the Left (radical), Attac (anti-globalist), Copernic (anti-European), Alternative Libertaire (anti-bosses and police), the Alternative Movement (alternative), the CGT (a large, radical trades union federation), FO (a breakaway from the CGT) and SUD (a breakaway from the FO).

They were here, in Martigues, a Communist-run town between Marseilles and the Camargue at the mouth of the Rhône, to celebrate the victory of the "non" in Sunday's referendum on the proposed EU constitution. To celebrate, because the anti-treaty left - and many in the pro-treaty centre-right and centre-left establishment - now believe that the battle is decided. Ten opinion polls in a row have shown the "non" camp ahead, by up to eight points.

Barring a miracle, or one of those repudiations of the opinion polls to which French voters are occasionally partial, the EU constitution will be rejected by France on Sunday and, therefore, die. The rally in Martigues was, therefore, more about What Happens Next than about the campaign just ending. Speaker after speaker, and there were 18 of them, called for the preservation of the "new unity" of the anti-treaty left: far left, alternative left, old communist left and part of the socialist and green moderate left.

The new spirit of comradeship, forced in the "struggle" against the treaty, must create "a revolutionary, new political situation in France", they said. Some hope. These people hate each other, almost as much as they hate capitalism, globalism, liberalism and the EU. The treaty campaign has divided them from the "electable" core of the moderate socialists and greens.

"Yes" or "non" on Sunday, the French left will enter the next presidential campaign scattered and weakened, divided between ideologues and realists. It was, nevertheless, extraordinary to hear the massed ranks of the mostly elderly, "official" communists at the Martigues rally cheering the ambitious, young Trotskyist postman Olivier Besancenot, aged 31 (LCR).

It was astonishing to hear the Trotskyists, of the teacher and civil servant-dominated LCR, cheering for the Parti Communiste Français (PCF), which is the last direct descendant of Stalinism outside of Cuba and North Korea.

If you think that is an unfair description of French communism, meet a life-long PCF member, Gérard Claude, 70, a retired fisherman. He came to the rally in a red T-shirt marked CCCP. (He was not the only one). "For me," he said. "The Soviet Union still exists. It will always exist."

He did not accept, then, the popularly held view that the USSR was a failed tyranny. "No!" he said. "That is a capitalist lie. The Soviet Union did nothing but good..."

Continuing The Independent's Tour de France before the vote, we have come down the Rhône valley from Burgundy to the economically booming, but politically polarised and bad-tempered, French Deep South.

If this was the cyclist's Tour de France, this would be the mountain stage. Martigues is in flat country in the oil-refinery-infested marshlands of the Rhône delta. The French left is, however, uphill work.

Before the rally began, I spoke to a score or more of "militants" of one persuasion or another. They were against the EU treaty because it was "ultra-liberal" and "not sufficiently social"; because it was "written for the bosses, not the people"; because jobs in France were being moved abroad; or because they feared an influx of Polish or Romanian workers, on cut-price wages.

But weren't all the references to "free-trade", "competition", and "markets", which they hated, copied into the constitution from existing EU treaties going back to 1957? Weren't they therefore challenging, not just the constitution but the whole basis - free trade, free movement of workers - on which French prosperity had been built in the 1960s? No, they weren't against free movement, they were just just against the Poles and Czechs coming to France on low wages. They wanted a united Europe but one with harmonised social protection, not free trade or "competition".

A Frenchman of Polish extraction whom I met on my travels this week said: "The French left is like a radish. It is red on the outside and white at its heart." In other words, fiercely nationalist. Much of the left-wing rhetoric in this campaign has resembled far-right rhetoric: anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner.

For low-paid Poles, read low-paid Arabs, I suggested. George Capozi, 58, secretary of the Martigues branch of the CGT, objected to that. "We are not far right. We are not against foreigners," he said. "My own grandparents came here from Italy in the 1930s..."

Would they be welcome today?

There were the Communists, the Socialists, the Greens, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (Trotskyist), the Republican Movement of the Left (nationalist), the Radical Party of the Left (radical), Attac (anti-globalist), Copernic (anti-European), Alternative Libertaire (anti-bosses and police), the Alternative Movement (alternative), the CGT (a large, radical trades union federation), FO (a breakaway from the CGT) and SUD (a breakaway from the FO).

A Frenchman of Polish extraction whom I met on my travels this week said: "The French left is like a radish. It is red on the outside and white at its heart." In other words, fiercely nationalist. Much of the left-wing rhetoric in this campaign has resembled far-right rhetoric: anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner.