The "fall of Europe"

Will France be at the origin of the E.U. implosion? That is the question.

Two polls over the weekend showed that the “no” campaigns are gaining ground in France and the Netherlands, which votes three days later. More than 20 successive polls have predicted that the French will reject the constitution. The latest put the “no” vote at 62 per cent, the highest yet. The latest Dutch poll showed 52 per cent planning to vote “no”.

The following tends to confirm that the E.U. would rather be better off without France though:

Lionel Jospin, the former French Prime Minister, emerged from three years of political exile at the weekend to denounce fellow Socialists who want to reject the European constitution. They had a duty to vote “yes” because the party had decided to do so in an internal referendum last December, M Jospin told a rally for the 100th anniversary of the French party. He said that Laurent Fabius, also a former Prime Minister, and other senior Socialists who have broken with the party line were “ inspired by individualism” rather than “the collective spirit at the core of socialism”.

And indeed, not everyone in Europe is blind to Old Europe's - France in particular - collectivist mind:

President [of the Czech Republic Vaclav] Klaus sees an unsettling new challenge: the zeal of Old Europe--France, Germany, Brussels--to impose collective choices on New Europe--Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Ireland. "Ten years ago," Mr. Klaus writes, "the dominant slogan was: 'deregulate, liberalize, privatize.' Now the slogan is different; 'regulate . . . get rid of your sovereignty and put it in the hands of international institutions and organizations.' "

"The current European unification process is not predominantly about opening up," he continues, "It is about introducing massive regulation and protection, about imposing uniform rules, laws, and policies." It is about a "rush into the European Union which is currently the most visible and the most powerful embodiment of ambition to create something else--supposedly better--than a free society."