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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 003722 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT ALSO FOR EUR/WE, EUR/ERA, EUR/PPD, DRL/IL, INR/EUC AND 
EB 
DEPT OF LABOR FOR ILAB 
DEPT OF COMMERCE FOR ITA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV ELAB EU FR PINR SOCI ECON
SUBJECT: FRANCE'S REFERENDUM ON EU CONSTITUTION: 'NO' WINS 
IN DECISIVE REJECTION OF ESTABLISHMENT 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
¶1.  (SBU) In a stinging defeat for President Chirac and the 
entire French establishment -- its political class and 
business, media and cultural elites -- French voters 
massively voted 'no' in the May 29 referendum on the proposed 
constitution for the EU.  President Chirac, in a terse 
statement on national television, acknowledged the setback, 
and promised a "new impetus" for his administration.  As 
expected, voter turn-out was high (seventy percent of 
registered voters), with 55 percent voting 'no.'  Fear of 
unemployment and of social and economic dislocation stemming 
from globalization and an expanded Europe helped drive the 
populist tide of 'no.'  The decision to reject the proposed 
constitution breaks the momentum of constructing the more 
united, "political" Europe advocated by all of the 
constitution's mainstream, center-left and center-right 
supporters.  Domestically, the referendum served as a 
convenient vehicle for economic and social protest, and 
highlighted what is termed here a growing "social fracture." 
(We will address domestic implications of the vote septel). 
END SUMMARY. 
 
THE RESULTS 
----------- 
¶2.  (SBU) French voters massively voted 'no' -- 55 percent of 
a high 70 percent turn-out -- in France's May 29 referendum 
on the proposed constitution for the EU.  The voting pattern 
conformed to the fracture line dividing cities with strong 
economies that benefit from EU expansion and globalization 
(for example, Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, and Toulouse voted 
'yes') from cities with higher unemployment, often also beset 
by ethnic tensions due to immigration or industrial decline 
(for example, Marseille, Nice, Lille and Reims voted 'no'). 
In addition, the voting pattern highlighted the divide 
between individuals who fear for their employment and 
economic security and those with the confidence, skills and 
financial cushion to adapt successfully to changing 
circumstances.  The populist tide of 'no' -- for all its 
variety of political orientation -- overwhelmingly consisted 
of workers, salaried employees, shopkeepers, artisans and 
rural folk.  Paris' posh seventh district, like the French 
expatriate community in the Washington DC area, voted over 80 
percent 'yes.'  As Francois Rebsamen, mayor of Dijon and 
architect of the Socialist Party's (PS) losing, 'yes' 
campaign grimly assessed his party's loss among its own 
electorate, "Something's happening out there -- every popular 
segment of society voted 'no.'" 
 
THE FRANCE OF 'NO' AND THE FRANCE OF 'YES' 
-------------------------------------- 
¶3.  (SBU) The profiles of the 'yes' and 'no' electorates 
reflects basic political, economic, and social dichotomies: 
right/left (76 percent of right and right-leaning voters 
voted 'yes,' 67 percent of left and left-leaning voters voted 
'no'); richer/poorer and employment secure/insecure; and 
metropolitan/provincial and state independent/dependent.  The 
different experience of the factors driving this societal 
divide (unemployment, diminished purchasing power, 
outsourcing and globalization, immigration, dependency on 
public health and education services, etc.) was projected 
onto the proposed constitution.  The high voter turn-out and 
decisive dimension of the 'no' victory stemmed from the way 
the referendum provided many the opportunity to express their 
discontent over living on the wrong side of this divide. 
Breaking the momentum of the European construction was not a 
key motive of the majority of French 'no' voters. 
 
PRESIDENT CHIRAC'S REACTION 
--------------------------- 
¶4.  (SBU) Within an hour of the closing of the polls -- in 
what many observers agreed seemed a mechanical, even hollow, 
performance -- President Chirac read a terse statement on 
national television.  Struggling to set the stage for 
regaining the initiative and to play the above-the-fray role 
that the French constitution envisions for the Chief 
Executive, Chirac said he had "taken into account" the French 
people's "democratically expressed" decision.  Chirac tried 
to put a business-as-usual spin on voters' crumpling 
dismissal of his leadership and his ten-year record in 
office.  He stressed how France would continue to meet its 
responsibilities in Europe, and how, in coming days, he would 
give details of a "new impetus" for administration policy. 
Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin emerged from the 
welter of instant analysis that followed announcement of 
results as a leading candidate to replace Jean-Pierre 
Raffarin as Prime Minister.  Villepin has never been elected 
to public office and does not have a network of allies in 
parliament.  Even so, the greatest drawback for Chirac and 
the party he founded (the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP)) 
of a Villepin government is that Villepin and UMP party 
president Nicolas Sarkozy are regularly at loggerheads. 
Their temperaments differ, as do the underpinnings of their 
outlooks for domestic policy, Villepin hewing to a more 
traditional, Gaullist statism and nationalism even as Sarkozy 
signals ever more overtly his "liberal," i.e. free market, 
policy preferences. 
 
SARKOZY'S "LIBERAL" DESTINY 
--------------------------- 
¶5.  (SBU) In remarks delivered at UMP headquarters soon after 
polls closed and referendum results were announced, Sarkozy 
skillfully, determinedly straddled both sides of the fence. 
On the one hand, he firmly called on the party and the 
party's electorate to remain united and support the 
president.  On the other hand, he called for a "fundamental 
rethinking" of the government's social and economic policy 
even if that implied a major shift that called into question 
France's social model.  If offered the premiership (a job he 
believes should have been offered him from the very beginning 
of Chirac's second term in 2002), Sarkozy could not lightly 
refuse.  However, the referendum's resounding 'no' was a 
massive, popular rejection of the "liberal," in preference 
for the "social."  Undertaking a market-oriented, reform 
agenda in open defiance of a popular opposition flush with 
victory is hardly a recipe for political success, even for a 
politician as talented and confident as Sarkozy. 
 
THE CROWING OF THE VICTORS 
-------------------------- 
¶6.  (SBU) The extreme-right, National Front's (FN) Jean-Marie 
le Pen projected himself as, again, "challenging" Chirac for 
the presidency of France.  Le Pen called Chirac a "worthy 
adversary, who would be easy to beat" in 2007.  (In the 
second round run-off to the 2002 presidential election le Pen 
lost to Chirac by 82 percent of the vote).  Phillipe de 
Villiers, the die-hard, far-right sovereignist, whose 
enthusiastic supporters dubbed "chief of the 'no's,'" called 
for President Chirac to resign and for dissolution of the 
National Assembly.  The Communist Party's (PC) Marie-George 
Buffet, along with the leaders of the raft of far-left 
activist groups that were key to the 'no' campaign's 
grassroots effectiveness, all called for unity of the people 
in view of renegotiation of a new, "social" version 
constitutional treaty for the European Union. 
 
THE PS -- TORN BETWEEN RECRIMINATION AND ELECTORAL CLOUT 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
¶6.  (SBU) The leaders of France's deeply split Socialist 
Party (PS) -- of both its 'yes' and 'no' camps -- were all 
careful to insist, through gritted teeth or masks of 
magnanimity, that the important thing was "unification of the 
people of the left."  Fifty-six percent of the large, 
socialist-sympathizing electorate voted 'no.'  Had it not 
been for the leaders of the PS's 'no' camp -- in particular, 
former prime minister Laurent Fabius, who broke with the 
party's democratically reached decision to support the 
proposed constitution and went on to legitimate voting 'no' 
among center left voters -- 'no' would not have won.  Party 
National Secretary Francois Hollande, who waged a 
hard-fought, ultimately futile campaign, will not easily cede 
the party leadership, but he may be irreparably damaged.  A 
struggle for the party may be shaping up between former Prime 
Minister Jospin, representing the PS establishment, and 
Fabius.  Fabius' intuition about the depth of disaffection 
among the left's modest income electorate, and his 
willingness to hitch the wagon of his political future to his 
hunch make him the big winner on the left for now.  However, 
it is unclear if he will be able to transform this into 
support for a bid for the presidency in 2007.  The PS's need 
to remain united in order to have any chance of uniting the 
left-leaning electorate and alternating in power with the 
center right should outweigh even the deep ideological 
divisions ("reformist" 'yes' versus "socialist" 'no') and 
bitter personal divisions that now divide the party's 
leadership. 
WOLFF