Deep fears over globalisation and its effect on their working lives led the French to vote No, writes Lara Marlowe
Who's afraid of globalisation? The French. In the campaign for the referendum on the European constitutional treaty, the No camp convinced voters that the free market, liberal economic ideology that permeates the treaty was an incitement to globalisation.
They didn't have to look far for supporting evidence. Article III-314, for example, says the EU "shall contribute . . . to the harmonious development of world trade, the progressive abolition of restrictions on international trade and on foreign direct investment, and the lowering of customs and other barriers". Article III-131 stipulates that in the event of "serious internal disturbances" or war, EU members will meet "with a view to taking together the steps needed to prevent the functioning of the internal market being affected". (If an EU member was at war, surely there would be higher priorities than defending the functioning of the internal market?)
Lest anyone doubted the EU's embrace of globalisation, Günter Verheugen, European Commission vice-president in charge of industry, stated clearly last week: "Globalisation is not something China imposed on us, but something we have done ourselves. People must be told that globalisation is our policy."
The French might have supported globalisation if it could have been French globalisation - if France's generous unemployment and retirement benefits, 35-hour working week and seven-week holidays could be shared, like the Enlightenment, with the world. For decades, French politicians misled citizens into thinking that France's social model would pull European standards upward, that the emerging European foreign policy would be an extension of the Quai d'Orsay and the Élysée.
But French voters are not stupid: they saw how Les Anglo-Saxons and "new Europe" refused to follow the Franco-German lead on the Iraq war. They see French factories relocating to eastern Europe and east European labourers dragging salaries down in the French building sector. L'Europe Puissance and L'Europe Sociale - the two main arguments of the Yes camp - were seen to be hollow lies.
Hidden away in the database of the ministry of finance at Bercy are statistics which seem to indicate that globalisation creates more jobs than it destroys. One in four French people work for the export market. But the nefarious effects of globalisation - for which read Americanisation - go without saying.
Almost no one in the French Yes camp challenged the "common wisdom" by making a case for globalisation as an opportunity. In his general policy speech on June 8th, new prime minister Dominique de Villepin said: "French men and women know it and say it with force: globalisation is not an ideal; it cannot be our destiny."
An anxious national character has, I suspect, a lot to do with the French phobia of globalisation. Though the strict labour code makes it nearly impossible to fire, studies show French employees live in fear of losing their jobs. France is the world's number-one consumer of tranquillisers. A few days before the referendum, Le Figaro reported in a front-page story that French chemists were out of Temesta, the country's leading tranquilliser. Villepin described this as "a moment when the French are expressing their suffering, their impatience, their anger".
The French cannot be totally wrong in believing that life is too precious to be squandered in endless toil; that 21st century employees should not be trapped in a desperate fight to preserve the social gains of the past century. Are state-run transport and postal services really such a bad thing? Surely, as the left-wing senator Jean-Luc Mélenchon says, being able to watch television on our mobile telephones is not the pinnacle of human existence? The interventionist French system created the world's best healthcare, its fastest train and the Ariane rocket. But it has also engendered 10 per cent unemployment for nearly 25 years, and Les Anglo-Saxons, in the form of prime minister Tony Blair, are baying for economic reform.
The former British foreign secretary Robin Cook was right when he warned Blair to stop talking about reform in a threatening way. Britain should stop defending an opt-out clause for the directive on working hours, Cook said. Four million Britons already work more than the maximum 48 hours a week allowed by the directive. One and a half million work more than 55 hours - enough to make the French shudder.
Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair will meet tomorrow in an attempt to defuse tension before the June 16th-17th European Council. The two leaders are diametrically opposed on the future of the ratification process and the 2007-13 budget. Blair already angered Paris by suspending Britain's referendum, and Chirac is leading calls for an end to Britain's €4.5 billion annual rebate. Since Britain was so keen on enlargement, the argument goes, they can help pay for it.
Underlying these urgent questions is a deeper dispute over how to confront globalisation. Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder still hanker after the politically integrated, socially conscious Europe that was the best reason for voting Yes, and which is now in danger of sinking with the treaty.
Every day, some rational, pragmatic economist or official tells the French they must be realistic. Globalisation is a fact and they must accept that they will have to work harder and longer for less.
Voters are amenable to reason. But free-marketeers Blair and Barroso have some explaining to do - in a world of cut-throat competition, what will prevent Europeans losing their jobs to the lowest bidders?