Vive l'une et indivisible république!

France has spoken, and it was a loud "NON". 54.87% of the French voted against the draft of the European Constitution. And they were right to do so.

I do agree the European Union has many advantages. I do like free traffic of goods and people, the euro (the way it was introduced is something different), the fact there has been no war in Western Europe for 60 years.

However, there are several issues with the EU in general and this constitution in special. For starters, this is not a constitution, but a law codex. A constitution has 100 to 200 articles that describe the basic rights and duties of a population and its government. The details of economic and social policy should not be in a constitution. The constitution shouldn't say anything about anti-trust legistation. Smaller states can be pushed aside by the six big ones, while the expansion to the East has gone too fast. There are too little guarantees for historical minorities and smaller cultures. Autonomous regions have to be represented be the federal state, although one is talking about their competences. There is to little about subsidiarity, not only to federal states, but also towards regions, provinces and municipalities.

What really irritates me though, is the arrogance of the European politicians, and especially their reactions to the French referendum. French, but also Dutch, Spanish, Italian, and Belgian politicians claimed the French voters were wrong, misinformed, vengeful, self-interested, etc... They choose to ignore the French results. Europe must go on! It'll probably slow down a little bit, but nobody is going to take the opinions of Jack European into account. There will be no renegotiations. There will be no second vote. But we will have the, not a, but the constitution. The EU seems to have no contact with reality, but on the other hand, it regulates the life of more than 400 million Europeans to the smallest details, without respect for individuality, just drawing statistics and averages. You'd wonder why they even bother to hold referenda in countries were it's not legally necessary, like France and the Netherlands. Probably the politicians were also not in touch with reality, confident that their electoral livestock would listen to them.

The constitution is a like a thousand-headed dragon, and it will not disappear. Not just like that. But it probably will if more countries, like the Netherlands, the UK and the Czech Republic vote against it. That why I sincerly hope the Dutch also vote "NEE" on Wednesday.