Random Fate

May 01, 2005

Letters from Europe:

Opinion polls in France show a shift on the EU Constitution

By Jack Grant

GRENOBLE, France - Over a week ago, I wrote a commentary at The Moderate Voice on the television appearance by French President Jacques Chirac to promote a "oui" vote on the EU Constitution.

I concluded with the following:

So, in the end, even though the polls look like Chirac had no effect on public opinion after his televised discussion of the EU constitution, don't be surprised if another razor-thin victory is pulled out by the government in favor of the EU, as was done in the case of the common currency.

Although the voting itself is still weeks away, the outcome of "NON!" looks far less certian. From The Guardian newspaper:

Opinion polls out this weekend show for the first time that a majority of French people intend to vote in favour of the European draft constitution next month.
The two surveys, carried out for Le Monde and the Journal du Dimanche, found that 52 per cent supported the draft constitution and 48 per cent opposed it.

But a large proportion said they might still change their minds ahead of the 29 May referendum - 24 per cent in the Le Monde poll and 30 per cent in the other survey.

The turnaround comes amid an energetic campaign by the right-wing government and the mainstream Socialist party to highlight the advantages of European co-operation.

As I wrote before:

The US based reporting that I have seen has missed both the nature of Chirac's arguments, and the usual, apparently indifferent reaction of the French citizenry to the arguments he made.

Despite the popular perception of the French character, it has been my experience that they are actively repulsed by emotional arguments used in politics. Don't get me wrong, they actively enjoy arguing politics here, but as soon as you make an argument that appeals to the gut rather than the head, you have lost the argument in their eyes.

Does this mean they are eminently logical?

No. For the weights they assign to different factors that have to be balanced against each other are very much affected by their feelings, and in most cases the weighting is actually determined emotionally, not that they would ever admit it!

This results in what in the US would be thought of as an extremely delayed reaction to events, making instant opinion polls deceptive to the outside viewer.

This is a very complicated issue, and not solely because of the length of the proposed constitution. Europe is struggling to define its identity. The proposed addition of Turkey is exposing fault lines that make the discussion over the constitution appear trivial. Because of this level of soul-searching and self-definition, don't expect there to be any certainty on the outcome until AFTER the votes are counted.

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