France voted 55 per cent to 45 per cent to reject the proposed European constitution, in a severe condemnation both of the government and the perceived liberal tendencies of the European Union. Many believe the French rejection could be followed by a No vote in the Netherlands on Wednesday, dealing a potentially fatal blow to the European Union's constitutional treaty and bringing Europe's 50-year integration drive to a halt.
The political fallout in France was immediate:
President Jacques Chirac is widely expected to announce a change of government on Monday or Tuesday after meeting his Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin the morning after France's vehement rejection of the European constitution on Sunday night...
The 54.87 per cent vote for the No campaign is also a personal humiliation for President Chirac, who called the referendum with a view to bolstering his political authority before the presidential elections.
Calls for his resignation came from left and right, with even pro-constitution politicians turning on the French president to blame him for the electoral disaster.
But the FT's Peter Norman claims (to subscribers only) the game is not over yet.
The size of the French No vote has delivered a shock to the European Union and its political class. But it would be wrong to assume it marks the imminent end of Europe's constitutional treaty.
... the treaty [signed in Rome last year] itself envisaged that there might be difficulties with one or two member states, implying that all should try to ratify it by a deadline of November 1 2006.
Declaration 30, appended to the treaty, says "that if two years after the signature of the treaty ... four fifths of the member states have ratified it and one or more member states have encountered difficulties in proceeding with ratification, the matter will be referred to the European Council".
The European Council is the assembly of EU heads of state and government that meets about four times a year to give the EU strategic direction. It was a European Council meeting in June 2004 that agreed the constitutional treaty.
The European Council's next meeting will be on June 16-17 under the chairmanship of Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister, who currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU.
A statement, issued on Sunday night by Mr Juncker jointly with the presidents of the European parliament and the European Commission, suggested he might want to press ahead with the ratification process. While respecting the outcome of the French vote, it recalled that nine member states, representing 49 per cent of the EU population, had already ratified the treaty and that the majority of states had not yet had an opportunity to complete the ratification process.
Norman endorses a sentiment expressed last week by Henry Farrell...
Although the French No vote is a shock for the EU and its ruling elites, it may have the salutory effect of making those elites listen in future to the people...
... but then goes on to suggest "the people" just didn't understand:
True, the No voters in France had many different reasons for rejecting the constitutional treaty. But after a furious debate in recent weeks, no-one could accuse them of ignorance.
With hindsight it is clear that the French government should have made a bigger and better effort to explain the constitutional treaty...
Also with hindsight, it was a mistake to call the text a constitution, which it is not. A constitution implies a sovereign body: the superstate of eurosceptic myth. The text agreed by the Convention in 2003 and completed by the EU governments in 2004 is a constitutional treaty, by which member states voluntarily confer some sovereignty on the EU.
Umm, OK.
Developing, as they say.