FRANCE: President Jacques Chirac's quest to have France ratify the European constitutional treaty started yesterday with the opening of a three-day debate in the National Assembly.
The exercise will culminate in a vote on February 1st to alter the constitution to enable France to adhere to the European treaty.
About 50 socialist deputies who were on the losing side of the socialist referendum on the constitutional treaty are expected to abstain.
The 22 communist deputies and about 15 "sovereignists" from the right-wing UMP will vote No, but the vast majority of 577 deputies are certain to pass the law.
It will be approved by the Senate in mid-February. Both houses will meet in congress at Versailles at the end of March to finalise the changes. With this groundwork laid, the citizens of France will then be asked, in a referendum scheduled to take place before the end of June, whether they approve of the constitutional treaty.
The changes debated this week will also require France to hold further referendums if other countries - notably Turkey - join the EU after Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. The requirement for a Turkish referendum was Mr Chirac's way of postponing the dispute over Turkish accession so it would not "pollute" the campaign for the constitutional treaty.
But it has instead linked the two issues. "It was a political mistake," the former justice minister and socialist senator, Mr Robert Badinter, told Libération. "There was no need to resolve the question of the referendum on Turkey, which won't take place for at least 10 years."
Strangely, the Foreign Minister, Mr Michel Barnier, an ardent European, did not attend the opening session of the debate. Rather, he left it to the Justice Minister, Mr Dominique Perben, to defend the constitutional change and the European treaty.
"This treaty is a necessity to reorganise the system of European treaties, which became too complex," Mr Perben said. The constitution would replace eight earlier treaties and some 50 protocols and appendices. It was hardly an argument to send the French rushing to the polling stations.
Under pressure from the Élysée, the UMP deputy and former prime minister, Mr Édouard Balladur, withdrew an amendment that would have required that all EU working documents be sent to the National Assembly for its perusal and non-binding vote.
Supporters of the treaty yesterday argued that it increased French sovereignty by allowing the National Assembly to contest European decisions believed to violate the principle of subsidiarity (the separation of national and European prerogatives).
But opponents pointed out that, in the event of a dispute over subsidiarity, the European Court would have the final say.
The "sovereignists" may be a small minority in the assembly, but their arguments could find resonance among the public.
"This 'constitution' lays the foundation and framework for a supra-national state built on top of European nations," the UMP deputy Mr Nicolas Dupont-Aignan said. Why would the word "constitution" be used if it were not a question of building a federal super-State? he added. For the first time, he claimed, the treaty institutionalises the supremacy of European law over national law. Mr Dupont-Aignan quoted the former foreign minister Mr Hubert Védrine, who recently said France had often helped Europe to advance by her ability to block things. "But when we will no longer have anything to block, or so little, how will we weigh on the evolution of the European project?" he asked.
Mr Jacques Brunhes, a communist deputy, said the European constitution would reduce the French National Assembly "to watching trains go by".