French Say Non to EU and Chirac

The French citizenry, who are not exactly known as "joiners" (see the Iraq war), have rejected the new EU constitution, effectively slapping their president Jacques Chirac right in the kisser. For all of those who love to comment about President Bush's approval rating, which generally runs somewhere around 50%, Chirac, the man who would be president of the world, has an approval rating of 32% among his fellow Frenchmen.

Chirac admitted defeat, but also took a shot at his countrymen:

"It is your sovereign decision, and I take note," Chirac said. "Make no mistake, France's decision inevitably creates a difficult context for the defense of our interests in Europe."

This has thrown the EU into turmoil and is causing a slide in the value of the Euro. Poor babies.

Mark Steyn, who always has an interesting take on things, discusses the campaign by the EU to gain ratification of the constitution:

Following Sunday's vote in France, on Wednesday Dutch voters get to express their opinion on the proposed ''European Constitution.'' Heartening to see democracy in action, notwithstanding the European elite's hysterical warnings that, without the constitution, the continent will be set back on the path to Auschwitz. I haven't seen the official ballot, but the choice seems to be: "Check Box A to support the new constitution; check Box B for genocide and conflagration."

Alas, this tactic doesn't seem to have worked. So, a couple of days before the first referendum, Jean-Claude Juncker, the "president" of the European Union, let French and Dutch voters know how much he values their opinion:

"If at the end of the ratification process, we do not manage to solve the problems, the countries that would have said No, would have to ask themselves the question again," "President" Juncker told the Belgian newspaper Le Soir.

Got that? You have the right to vote, but only if you give the answer your rulers want you to give. But don't worry, if you don't, we'll treat you like a particularly backward nursery school and keep asking the question until you get the answer right. Even America's bossiest nanny-state Democrats don't usually express their contempt for the will of the people quite so crudely.

Juncker is a man from Luxembourg, a country two-thirds the size of your rec room, and, under the agreeably clubby EU arrangements, he gets to serve as "president" without anything so tiresome as having to be voted into the job by "ordinary people."

I doubt we'll see WWIII in Europe over this, but things will be tense in Brussels for awhile.