Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

French democracy is in trouble – and the EU is to blame

(Getty images)

France’s airwaves have been crackling with indignation this week, as politicians wring their hands at the record abstention in the first round of voting in the regional elections. Sixty six per cent of French voters found something else to do last Sunday other than vote, prompting Gabriel Attal, a government spokesman, to proclaim that the ‘abysmal’ turnout ‘imperilled democracy’. ‘French democracy is sick,’ said Emmanuel Rivière of polling institute Kantar Public.

It was perhaps unfortunate timing for Monsieur Attal that his remarks were made on Wednesday June 23, five years to the day since the British people voted to leave the European Union. The milestone didn’t pass unnoticed in France, particularly among the millions of men and women who, in 2005, had their own vote on the country’s relationship with the E.U in a referendum to ratify the Constitution drafted the previous year.

Voters were asked a simple question: Do you approve the bill authorising the ratification of the treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe?

Much of the media and the political class were confident that the response would be a resounding ‘Oui’; but it wasn’t. The ‘Non’ vote triumphed with 55 per cent of voters rejecting the constitution in a turnout of nearly 70 per cent. See, Monsieur Attal, there was a time when the French enjoyed voting.

And how did the French Establishment react to their defeat? They ignored it. The then-president Jacques Chirac, an ardent Europhile, initially told the nation in an address that ‘It is your decision, it is your sovereign decision and I take note of it.’

But he didn’t. He procrastinated long enough to pass the problem onto his successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, also a fully-fledged member of the Brussels fan club. When he became president in 2007, Sarkozy and the other EU nations effectively rebranded the Constitution as the Treaty of Lisbon and it was adopted by the French parliament.

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