20 anni fa oggi, gli elettori francesi hanno respinto la prima costituzione dell’UE in un referendum

Conservatives feared the EU constitution would hinder France sovereignty. Leftists feared an open market would put people out of jobs. Far right and far left parties were all pushing toward a Frexit.

I’m pretty sure we would vote Yes today, all things considered.

Now, the mandatory *Raffarinade*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV3L2y7UwNQ

Oh boy, this hurts…

It’s worth noting that referendums in France are a complete joke.

If citizens want to propose a referendum, they first have to make at least 4.8 million people sign the petition. Then it must gather the signature of 185 MP. Then it must be validated by the constitutional council. Then the parliament has 6 months to decide whether to go through with the referendum. Then the referendum can happen.

On the other hand, the president can organize a referendum without any of these constraints.

The possibility for referendums to come from anyone else than the president was actually introduced in 2008. And none of them ever went through. The last referendum we ever had was the 2005 one about the European constitution and the results were ignored.

Regardless of whether you think the EU constitution was a good one or not, it’s a fact that this referendum was a big democratic traumatism in France, and it greatly participated in the sentiment that there’s no point in voting and the increase in abstention. Various shenanigans since then added salt to the wounds so it won’t really get much better in the current situation. And I know people on this sub tend to like him and defend him from any criticism, but a lot of those shenanigans that participated in making the sentiment worse came from our current president. Again, that’s regardless of what you believe about whether what he was trying to achieve was good or not.

Ironically, the EU is a lot better when it comes to consulting the citizens.

This referendum almost made me lose faith in democracy. In France, for a great part of the population and the political class, a referendum is a vote for or against the government.

The question was also misunderstood, you can’t imagine how many people are complaining that the EU continued to evolve despite that vote. For many people, it was also a vote against the current political direction of the EU of the time.

At least they can. Not like in Russia or Potato-Russia.

I am a dinosaur and I remember I was really upset by this choice.

Anyway, at the end of the day…

France had BARELY approved Maastricht in a referendum despite all the big parties and prominant politicians being in favour.

Ireland had rejected Constitutional Amendments (required for many EU treaties because of something speicific in the Irish Constitution) multiple times in referendums and had to “re-negotiate” to get it passed in repeat referndums.

Referendums are HORRIBLE tools, because they allow people to make yes/no decisions on complex issues, with minimal information or/and interest, who often are motivated by spite (let’s vote no to fuck the “establishment” who made my life worse) and are the playground for populists, for the dumber part of the population, and for reactionaries.

They are also conservative tools by definition: reforms rarely have 50% approval, fear of the unkown/change is a thing, a lot of people will opt for the “familiar” status quo rather than a change. Look at when Switzerland gave women a right to vote and when they legalized same-sex marriage compared to e.g. France, Austria, Germany.

Reform and progress doesn’t happen with 50% public approval. It happens when some visionaries make the call, and take the country with them. With a referndum, this is not possible.

That Constitution was pretty much impossible to read even for the best educated portion of the electorate. So asking to approve or vote against it made no sense.

Referendum had been used very seldom and under de Gaulle, whom Chirac was supposed to emulate, losing a referendum meant resigning. De Gaulle resigned in 1969 after losing a referendum , but Chirac didn’t in 2005 for the v simple reason that gaullisme had been more a brand than a credo to him.