Main reasons for the 'NO' vote - fear and anger inded.
As I said last night, the 'NO' vote to the Constitutional Treaty is the result of anger and fear. Here's what the N.Y Times says this morning:
Pollsters said the rejection reflected French voters' anger at the 72-year-old president and his center-right government for failing to improve the country's troubled economy, as well as fear that the treaty would erode France's generous cradle-to-grave social safety net.The debate had been colored by fear of the mythical "Polish plumber," the worker from recent European Union members from the East who is increasingly free to move West and willing to work for lower pay than Frenchmen.
Proponents of the "no" fueled voters with fear of a more powerful European Union where France no longer has influence, and of an increasingly "Anglo-Saxon" and "ultraliberal" Europe where free-market capitalism runs wild.
posted by Joker & Thief @ 12:05 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I thought Serge July's editorial in Libération ("Chef d'oeuvre de masochisme") was an excellent summary of the situation. Colombani said much the same in his roudabout way in Le Monde. What is astonishing is that both these papers, which have done so much to give intellectual credentials to the "allegro-portist" school of economics while demonizing the word "liberal" beyond recuperation, show bewilderment that the French people have become so viscerally opposed to economic realities. What we really need are French leaders with the intellectual honesty and the pedagogical skills to explain to voters the rudiments of economy they learned at Sciences-Po and ENA, and the courage to overtly defend their policies before the electorate. You can't eternally pretend to be a new Che Guevara, Mr Chirac, if you want at the same time to introduce timid market reforms which are based on principles that aren't really compatible with collectivism.
I agree with you but scaring people with a simplified version of complex matters sells like hot cakes, dosen't it? I think it's the same process as what's been happening in the US - the politics of fear and the siege-mentality at their best. Fear is a very strong emotion as we all know. The media and politicians certainly have great reponsibility in the 'NON' by pushing the right buttons in the last few years, including demonizing the word 'liberal' which cannot even be discussed reasonably these days.
The question now is who can change that? I suspect Sarkozy is a phony or worse, a French Margaret Thatcher!
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