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French Fear Being Dragged Down to Europe's Level
Craig Smith | The New York Times
2005/05/25
http://afr.com/articles/2005/05/24/1116700704615.html
To get an idea of why the French have grown suddenly squeamish about Europe, take a look at Schirmeck, a small town hugging the railroad tracks in the Vosges mountains of Alsace.
Known locally for a concentration camp the Nazis built nearby, Schirmeck drew national attention this month when a tiny transformer factory laid off nine employees because it was moving production to Romania. The factory told the employees they could keep their jobs if they wanted to move there to work for about $184 a month, about a 10th of what they had been earning in France.
Opponents of the European Union's draft constitution, which faces a close vote in a French referendum this month, seized on the case as an example of everything that is wrong with the new Europe that France has helped to build.
"We shouldn't have to regress to compete with other countries in Europe," the head of the local metallurgical workers' union, Antoine Dugo, says, arguing that he wants the constitution rewritten to prevent such practices.
"How can we close our eyes to 30 years of social development?"
The EU, which started as a six-country trading zone in 1951 to help heal the wounds of World War II, now numbers 25. It added 10 new members a year ago, expanding eastward to include many former Soviet Union countries. Romania and Bulgaria are scheduled to join next year.
The new members, which have cheaper labor, lower taxes and more lax industrial regulations than their western European neighbors, make attractive places for employers constrained by social welfare costs and elaborate workers' rights laws in countries like France.
But the loss of jobs to the EU's less developed economies is angering many people in France.
"Because salaries and taxes are not harmonized in Europe, poorer countries with lower taxes can attract capital, and that puts pressure on us to lower taxes," the president of Alsace's regional council, Adrien Zeller, says. "But we can't lower taxes because we have expensive social services to maintain."
Those sentiments are complicating the French government's campaign to win support for the European constitution, which will strengthen Europe's institutions and underpin future Europe-wide laws. Support for the constitution has been increasing in response to a government-led campaign, but the latest opinion polls suggest that the May 29 referendum could be a toss-up.
Opposition to the constitution has little to do with the document itself. Very few voters have actually read the cumbersome text, at more than 60,000 words. The referendum has instead become a lightning rod for all sorts of worries and complaints, from rising unemployment to Turkey's potential European Union membership, which many people fear because the country is predominantly Islamic.
Most directly, the opposition is focused on the erosion of protectionist policies within the union and the loss of control over national policies that are increasingly dictated by Brussels (This can hardly be a surprise.), where the union's executive branch is based. The vote comes just as the impact of the union's new members is hitting western European economies.
While the constitution has nothing to do with the Schirmeck lay-offs, some people in this economically depressed region argue that it should - by including language that would prevent intra-European competition based on economic inequities. (The French want to avoid the competition that will threaten their welfare state.) They say the European Union ought to force other states to bring their labor practices and welfare systems up to western European standards rather than drag the rest of Europe down.
"We're in the process of eating each other," another local union official, Andre Blasco, says.
The French government has fought back, arguing that the constitution is necessary for Europe and that a French rejection would threaten the union's future and weaken France's influence on the Continent.
Other countries are avoiding the controversy by sending the constitution to their parliaments to ratify rather than risk the public debate that comes with a national vote. (So much for the direct consent of the governed.) Finland Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen said the constitution was too complicated to submit to a referendum. (The Finnish PM thinks that the people are too stupid to be trusted to decide the fate of the EU Treaty in a referendum. What elitist bullshit.)
Brussels is doing its part by offering concessions. (i.e., bribes.) Hoping to help Paris rally support, the European Union granted a request by French President Jacques Chirac to lower the value added tax on the country's beleaguered restaurants. But the special consideration was a painful reminder of how dependent France has become on European goodwill.
"In the end, I will vote yes because I don't want them to waste more time and money on it," says Christian Gouin, a resident of Strasbourg, home to the European parliament.
But he says enthusiasm for a larger, more integrated Europe is waning fast.
onedomino said:Just five days remain until the French referendum on the European Constitutional Treaty. The polls indicate that the non vote leads with 53 percent. The poor economic performance of France seems to be the main engine for those opposed to the EU Treaty.
...So what is going on? In France, as elsewhere in Europe, there have always existed unbridled nationalists, the sovereignists who say ``no'' to Europe in the name of defending the nation. But whether they belong to the extreme right or the communist left, they represent barely 20% of the electorate.
Over and above that, two factors explain the bizarre phenomenon captured by recent opinion polls in France.
The first is that the French have accounts to settle with their president and the government. Jacques Chirac was re-elected president with 82% of the vote because of the menace from the extreme right. According to all evidence, half of his votes came from the left. But Mr Chirac acted as if his mandate had been unequivocal and put in place one of the most conservative governments France has seen for half a century. ``Let's make the poor pay'' is his fiscal order of the day. It smacks of usurpation and is inciting many of the French to vote their anger.
The other factor is that France, like the rest of the world, suffers from an ill-managed form of globalisation. As a result, France suffers from growing inequality, high and still-rising unemployment, constant corporate restructurings entailing layoffs, threats to public services and social welfare programmes, and a general feeling of insecurity...
