The split in the ranks of French socialists over the EU constitution has shocked their comrades throughout Europe. Lara Marlowe in Paris looks at a debate that could have continent-wide implications
French socialist leaders who support the European constitutional treaty have used the words "apocalypse", "nuclear winter" and "suicide" to describe the fate of their party if a majority of its 135,000 registered members vote against the treaty in an internal referendum on December 1st.
The dire predictions are surely an exaggeration, but the debate that has raged for nearly a month has long-term implications for French politics and Europe.
Some question whether President Jacques Chirac can keep his promise to hold a national referendum to ratify the treaty if the Socialist Party (PS) decides against it. The treaty must be ratified by all 25 EU members to take effect. Referendums are not sure to pass in other countries, including Britain, but French socialists would incur special opprobrium if their navel-gazing sabotaged a text which was, after all, drawn up under the supervision of a former French president.
There are 31 socialist parties in the EU, since several member-states have two. The tiny Malta Labour Party is the only one to have come out against the constitutional treaty. The former Danish prime minister and MEP, Poul Rasmussen, warned the French socialists that if they vote against the treaty: "Not only will you be isolated; you will be alone." Laurent Fabius, a former socialist prime minister, speaker of the National Assembly and minister of finance who is at present the number two in the PS, stunned the country by announcing on September 9th that he opposes the constitutional treaty because it would, he claims, worsen unemployment through the off-shoring of jobs.
The greatest weakness of the non camp is that they have no plan for what happens after they vote against the treaty. This was explained by the former socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin, who emerged from political hibernation to support the treaty in Le Nouvel Observateur - a move which some interpreted as a sign that Jospin may again be a presidential candidate in 2007. This dispute is also a leadership crisis. Since Jospin withdrew after losing the 2002 election, no one has gained ascendancy over the party.
"The rejection of the text proposed today will not give us tomorrow, by miracle, a treaty in conformity with our views," Jospin wrote. "Our partners will not suddenly give in to our demands. We would have to reach a unanimous compromise which would necessarily be similar to the present one."
Pervenche Berès is president of the European Parliament's economic and monetary commission and was a member of Fabius's cabinet at the National Assembly. Having previously supported the constitutional treaty, she wrote a front-page opinion piece in Le Monde last week saying: "I would not have dared to say non to the draft constitutional treaty. The political choice of Laurent Fabius enables me to do it."
Berès and others who oppose the treaty persist in believing that "the day after a French non convinced Europeans, those with whom we want to advance, can roll up their sleeves. They can do it on the basis of the dynamic created by the French non."
Pierre Moscovici, a former minister of Europe an affairs and, like Berès, an MEP, says the non camp are deluding themselves. "There's no basis upon which to build a Europe-wide alliance against the treaty," he said in an interview. "All of the European socialists and the trade unions are for it. Except for the extreme right, the only people in Europe who're saying 'no' are British Conservatives, Polish neo-conservatives and Czech Catholics."
Fabius's stand has caused consternation in the European Parliament. The British Labour MEP Richard Corbett said he hoped the French socialists "will take into consideration that all of their European comrades are saying 'yes' to the constitution". The most scathing condemnation of the non camp came from an old ally of the French left, the green leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who expressed his "sadness" that Fabius "abandoned Europe out of base cowardice and petty political calculations".
Cohn-Bendit was referring to Fabius's ambition to be the socialist presidential candidate in the 2007 election - a likely scenario if the non carries the day. If Fabius had not broken ranks with the party, he would have played second fiddle to the PS's leader, François Hollande, in supporting the treaty. And he wants to shed the image of an economic liberal that he gained at the finance ministry.
Moscovici is convinced that if the socialists vote against the treaty in December, they will lose the 2007 presidential election. "Can you imagine a president who opposed the treaty representing France in Europe?" he asks.
The non camp may cut a lonely figure in Europe, but they hold a majority of seats in the PS's national bureau, which will meet next Saturday to negotiate conditions for the December referendum. Numerically, the factions which oppose the treaty - the Nouveau Parti Socialiste, Nouveau Monde, and Fabius's following - represent more than 50 per cent of the party. But party militants are not following their usual leaders.
The PS is to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding next April 25th, assuming it survives. The cover of this week's L'Express magazine shows Fabius and party leader Hollande above the headline: "Will they kill the Socialist Party?"
The present dispute goes back to the party's origins, when Jules Guesde argued for a radical break with the politics of the day, while the party's founder, Jean Jaurès, advocated gradual change. "It's really a question of identity," says Moscovici. "Are we a reformist, European party, totally in the mainstream of social democracy, or are we socialists with revolutionary goals?"
Though he does not agree with opponents of the treaty, Moscovici says he understands them. "Stopping the treaty is a way of stopping the present form of European integration," he says. "The debate about whether Europe is too liberal , its distance from the people, neglect of the lower social classes and the excess of 'technocracy' is a legitimate debate. It takes an important issue to split a big party down the middle."