One year later

Just one year ago a powerful storm shook France to its foundations.

In one of these great outbursts of resistance which the French keep up their sleeve they, followed by the Dutch, said 'No'. They rejected the dogma according to which the 'creators' of Europe would have continued their project without any cuts, discussion or modifications.

Through the referendum, the left and right were asking the people to tell them that they had always been right; they were asking the people to constitutionalise a European Union to which they have abandoned almost all their powers; they were asking them to give their final assent to something that everyone has known for a long time is not working.

"Top-down hegemony"

One year on from this huge rejection, by 54.7%, of the European Constitution by the French, we have learnt from a survey (LH2 for the Libération of 17 May 2006) that 98% of those who voted 'No' would do so again, while 10% of those who voted 'Yes' regret having done so, which means that now 58 to 60% of French people would reject the European Constitution. That is no longer just a slap in the face, it is a rebellion.

We must add that the ruling elite – which voted Yes – has not understood the new wake-up call given them on 29 May at all, analysing it sociologically as 'it was the inward-looking part of France that voted No'.

Therefore, the 'pause for reflection' which is to end at the European Summit in June will only have been used to look for ways to get around the obstacle of the people and do it again, but better, in the name of what the philosopher Paul Thibaud calls the 'top-down hegemony' which constitutes the active principle of the European doctrine.

The "No" betrayed four times

Since 29 May, the authority of the State has become gradually undermined: firstly during the two waves of urban rioting, then the incredible 'promulgation-withdrawal' of the law establishing the Contrat Première Embauche (CPE: First Employment Contract) and now the dreadful Clearstream soap-opera and the way it has had members of the government tripping over their own feet. One year on, the French people thus have several reasons to feel bitter.

Their huge 'No' has been betrayed at least four times: firstly the President of the Republic Jacques Chirac has not fulfilled his first legal duty to withdraw France's signature from the Constitutional Treaty, then the negotiations on Turkey's entry were begun at the end of 2005 as if nothing had happened, then the Bolkestein Directive, the symbol of a globalised Europe, was brushed up and sent back to the European Parliament at the beginning of 2006, and finally the approval of the Constitution through the Parliamentary back door was promised to the French by the two 'favourites' for the Presidential election, the UMP's Nicolas Sarkozy and the socialist Ségolène Royal.

No alternative

The three motives for the 'No' from the left to the right – the rejection of a supranational political architecture, the rejection of an undefined scope to the project and the rejection of the globalisation project – have quite simply been ignored, forgotten and treated with contempt.

The political architecture in particular, that is, the logic of supranational integration set in motion by the Treaty of Maastricht, then reinforced and constitutionalised in parts I and II (merger of the 'pillars', absolute primacy of European Law, legal personality and fundamental rights) is still being presented as having no possible alternative.

In Brussels, Rome, Berlin and Madrid, where they understand that the key to the future of Europe lies nowhere else but in France, they are waiting for the end of the Chirac era to reset in motion a procedure for the ratification of the rejected Treaty (the 'ideal compromise'), probably shorn of part III, and this time through Parliament, since it is always easier to get a Parliamentary majority than a majority of the people consulted by referendum.

Making the first move, the European Parliament, the Commission in Brussels and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg are here and now implementing whole rafts of these first two parts through Interinstitutional Agreements and judgments of principle, such as the notorious Judgment of 13 September 2005 which led to a de facto merger of the pillars of competences with a move to bring criminal law further within the Community domain.

During the European Summit of June 2005, if this Union was a spontaneously democratic organisation (as it believes it is), the ratification procedures of the draft Constitution would have been halted the morning after the first 'no' vote, in application of the Vienna Convention of 1969 on the Law of Treaties.

However, of the 14 ratifications so far, 5 have taken place after the two negative referendums.

The worst pretence at democracy was forcing the Danish people to vote a second time, after their rejection of Maastricht.

The end of the Democracy ?

At the heart of the misapprehension in Europe, which is dramatic for the peoples of the continent, is the fact that no-one has admitted that the European Union cannot, by its very essence, be a democratic organisation.

The strengthened powers of the Parliament in Strasbourg haven't changed a thing.

Democratically speaking, the EU would be neutral if unanimous agreement was required to make a decision.

None of the Member States would then risk being forced not to do the will of their own electorates.

James Buchanan, the modern theoretician of political liberalism and constitutional order, considers the principle of unanimity to be the foundation of democracy. For this Nobel Prize-winning American, no citizen should feel disadvantaged by or left out of the social contract. The ideal scenario for the adoption of laws is a consensus achieved through a national debate. Nowadays, French policy regarding Europe is increasingly giving the impression that, for France, the prime concern is efficiency rather than democracy, a situation which leads eventually either to inefficiency or to decisions which are contrary to the interests of the country.

Therefore, what we dare to call nowadays the 'democratic Empire', in the words of Professor Pierre Manent[1], is made up of, on the one hand, an 'American version' and, on the other, a 'European version', which he describes thus: 'Its fulcrum is not a central nation, but what I will call a central human agency.

This agency was born, since it must have been born somewhere, on either side of the Rhine, but it has become detached from any particular country or people and is engaged in extending even further its zone of pure democracy, a democracy without a people, that is, of a democratic government which is very respectful of human rights but detached from any collective debate (...).

Engaged in building two twin towers of Babel, we cannot see that separations between human groups cannot be entirely overcome, and that this fortunate powerlessness is a condition of freedom.'