France's decision to reject the European Union constitution has profound implications for its own government and people - and for the Union as a whole.
As a founding member and a crucial political force in the European communities, France's voice must be listened to with the greatest care and respect. Governments and voters elsewhere in the EU will now have to evaluate the French result and decide how to proceed. In doing so they should resist any immediate temptation to abandon their chosen path of ratifying the constitution, which cannot come into effect unless it is has been unanimously agreed.
France's debate on the constitution was unprecedentedly intense, but very broadly focused. The document and commentaries on it have been best sellers. Families, communities and work places were divided as never before. The issues have been both French and European. They have reflected a feeling of political and economic malaise in the country. High unemployment, insecurity and fear of change became entangled with efforts to blame them on European as well as national policies. The political elite which has classically articulated French priorities at home and abroad was profoundly split on the constitution, and became prey to competing ambitions about the next presidential campaign. Besides which, its failure to deliver effective political and economic leadership has lost it credibility with an angry population.
On the left those who say Anglo-Saxon type free market liberalism will be intensified if the constitution is passed, gravely affecting France's model of social protection, captured the public argument and held it. Those who say the country must adapt to these forces and use European policies to moderate them failed to convince. This matters because the case for the constitution was lost on the left among voters who were not prepared to give President Chirac the benefit of the doubt and were determined to punish him politically.
Governments and voters elsewhere in the EU must now decide how to respond to this decision. They would do well to take some time to consider its implications. They must balance the immediate political fallout against the need for a clearcut democratic process on a document which sets up a more integrated and coherent political entity. The constitution is a collective document affecting 25 member states and their populations. It was freely negotiated by parliamentary and governmental representatives and completed by an inter-governmental conference last year under Ireland's EU presidency. To be ratified, it must be agreed by all the states concerned according to their particular political arrangements.
Were the ratification process to be stopped because one state rejects it, the others would not have an opportunity to make their own decisions. The French result mirrors the first Irish vote on the Nice Treaty when a combination of national factors contributed to the outcome. The impact of the French vote should not be under-estimated in the Irish referendum.