Funferal

Why the French referendum failed

This is surreal! Giscard d’Estaing blames the failure of the EU constitution in France on the fact that each household was sent a copy of the full text of the constitution:

One crucial mistake was to send out the entire three-part, 448-article document to every French voter, said Mr Giscard.

Over the phone he had warned Mr Chirac already in March: “I said, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it’”.

“It is not possible for anyone to understand the full text”.

Now here’s a thought - if you’re moving from inter-governmental treaties to a constitutional model, isn’t one of the reasonable criteria that the text should be accessible to citizens. If Giscard d’Estaing is right - and I think he is - in claiming that seeing the full-text soured citizens on the treaty, then surely that highlights deep flaws in the text.