Posted on June 1, 2005, and tagged as
The Netherlands votes today on the European Union constitution, and Dutch officials would be blind not to notice the trail of destruction left by Sunday's French rejection. The first casualty was the constitution itself, which in its current form is now dead. Number Two is French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who was sacrificed after the referendum's defeat. President Jacques Chirac's re-election run in 2007 is also in serious doubt.
The Netherlands votes today on the European Union constitution, and Dutch officials would be blind not to notice the trail of destruction left by Sunday's French rejection. The first casualty was the constitution itself, which in its current form is now dead. Number Two is French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, who was sacrificed after the referendum's defeat. President Jacques Chirac's re-election run in 2007 is also in serious doubt.
Mr. Chirac yesterday installed poet/philosopher-cum-politician Dominique de Villepin as prime minister. Among his other choices was a more conservative rival of Mr. Chirac's, Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been named interior minister. Mr. de Villepin is best known to Americans as the diplomat who led an anti-U.S. coalition to spoil George Bush's efforts to depose fascist dictator-cum-butcher Saddam Hussein. Mr. de Villepin succeeded in blocking an umpteenth United Nations Security Council resolution, as well as inspiring a movement to replace "French" with "freedom" in American culinary appellations.
Within France, Mr. de Villepin is known as a political insider with a cultured, aristocratic style. He's an unelected protégé of Mr. Chirac and has written dozens of books of philosophy, politics and poetry. His vision of geopolitics is neatly articulated in a recent book in which French and European values are represented by a gentle seagull and the U.S. as a cavalier shark.
When French voters told Brussels to stick it, they were sending the same message to Paris. Mr. Chirac's choice to replace one company man with another is a shrewd one: He can cozy up to Eurocrats with a P.M. who's pro-European, show jittery voters that he's committed to maintaining a socialist economy, and by passing over Mr. Sarkozy, he's denying a potential rival the spotlight. U.S. officials (i.e. the sharks) will no doubt view this as France's commitment to be a royal pain in world affairs. Will Mr. Chirac's moves succeed? He'll know in 2007 when voters get another chance to tell him how he's doing.