French discourse on EU treaty dramatises citizen choice

WorldView: When researchers chart the left-right political dimension in Europe against attitudes towards European integration revealed by opinion polls they find that an inverted U-curve best describes the relationship.

Euro-scepticism is shared by the radical left and the radical right, while social democrat, Christian democrat, liberal and conservative parties are more supportive of European integration. Exclusion from government encourages Euro-scepticism. Referendums on European treaties give peripheral parties an opportunity to register domestic dissent and potentially shake up the party system.

An opinion poll by Ipsos for Le Figaro and Radio 1 in France this week shows clearly how these patterns are being played out and upset by the campaign on the EU constitutional treaty. Within three weeks support for the treaty among supporters of the Socialist Party has fallen by 25 points, from 62 to 47 per cent, while their support for a No vote rose from 38 to 53 per cent. There was a 25-point drop among those under 35, a 15-point one among salaried workers (more so in the public sector) and 30 points among the lowest paid.

This contrasts with the 80 per cent of Socialist supporters who voted for the Maastricht treaty in 1992, and with the 59 per cent of Socialist members who supported the constitution in last December's party referendum.

It seems clear the referendum will be won or lost among the party's electoral base, in a pattern that will affect social democratic parties in other European states.

Opposition to the treaty is much more clear cut among Communist Party supporters. But they are a declining political force in France. Attitudes among the Greens, who are growing, are more ambivalent, reflecting continent-wide divisions in their ranks between "realos" and "fundis".

As Pierre Giacometti, director general of Ipsos, says in a commentary on these findings, "the heart of the left's sociological base is touched" by them. He believes they are afflicted by an identity malaise in which European integration rhymes with job losses and a loss of social and economic security - notwithstanding that this poll was taken after the Brussels summit at which the services directive was amended and the European social model reaffirmed.

But he cautions against assuming the Yes case is lost with them, since a third of Socialist supporters do not yet know how they will vote in two months. The campaign is really only getting going now.

There is a sharp contrast between Yes and No supporters on the effects of a French vote against the constitutional treaty. Of those voting Yes 65 per cent believe it would be a grave blow to closer European relations, compared to 17 per cent of those voting no (although Socialist supporters are more evenly divided). Similarly 75 per cent of Yes voters accept that rejecting the treaty would weaken France's position in Europe in a major way, compared to only 24 per cent of those voting No.

At a briefing in Dublin this week Daniel Vernet of Le Monde explained how French politics feed into this European issue. In fact they can't really be separated in any EU state, since Europeanisation tends to transform political choices at domestic level. It follows that major domestic shifts have European consequences.

In France attitudes towards the treaty are affected by the fallout from the 2002 presidential elections, when Socialists voted for Jacques Chirac to defeat National Front candidate le Pen. They don't want to do so again. There is a lot of shadow-boxing going on ahead of the 2007 presidential election, with Laurent Fabius, who led the campaign against the treaty in the Socialist Party referendum, hoping to achieve in the country as a whole what he could not do in the party, thus bolstering his chances of being the candidate.

More generally, there is much popular suspicion of the treaty as a product of an elite consensus typical of the French political class, which disregards ordinary people and their concerns. This has been a growing trend there, harnessing resentment against a highly centralised and merit-

ocratic process of elite recruitment which has increasingly failed to deliver effective political and economic outputs to legitimise itself. This makes it impossible to call off the referendum and refer the issue to the parliament.

Another shift, Vernet noted, was that, whereas a few years ago the majority of French people were more pro-European than the political class, this has now been reversed, largely because of the pessimistic political atmosphere and economic situation.

It remains to be seen whether the outcome of last week's summit will affect this. As Giacometti points out, these attitudes will not be easily reversed without a positive dramatisation of the constitution to convince French voters of its historic importance.

It is difficult to see where that impulse can come from on the French left. Could it be encouraged by social democratic leaders from elsewhere in the EU? They have much to lose if it is defeated in France.

Only 15 per cent of French voters are hostile to Europe as such. Indeed a feature of the last 15 years has been a decline in exclusive national identifications. While national identity has become more salient politically, the numbers saying they are national first but European, too, have been steadily growing, and those who accept such a combination are more willing to accept deeper integration in selected spheres.

But they need to be convinced to do so, especially on issues of socio-economic security. If the system shifts sharply towards market-deepening and away from market-correcting, leftwing voters are attracted either to radical left sovereigntist solutions or to alternative ones which argue that "another Europe is possible".

Thus alongside the left-right dimension another one has been growing, ranging from green/alternative/libertarian values to traditional/authoritarian/nationalist ones, which researchers dub GAL/TAN. The latter are concentrated in rightwing populist and nationalist parties demonising immigration, integration and the European superstate, while the former are open to closer integration if it enhances political regulation of mobile capital. France's debate dramatises these choices for all EU citizens.