For the second time in the history of the French Vth Republic, the
first having led to the resignation of Charles De Gaulle in 1969, a
president lost a national referendum. On May 29, 2005, 54.7% of
French voters rejected the European Constitutional Treaty, even
though France was one of the major proponents of the European
Convention which led to the Constitution's drafting. The victory of
the “no” vote had been foreseen, but neither the margin of victory,
nor the high turnout (almost 70.5%) were expected. The rejection of
the Constitution raised two concerns: the first related to the
position of France in Europe, the second to its domestic impact. Why
did the French electorate vote as it did? Did voters make up their
minds based on national cues, the European issue being generally of
little importance even in European elections (Franklin, Marsh, and McLaren 1994; Van der Eijk and Franklin 1996)? Is the referendum
result the consequence of a growing anti-European attitude, which
could cause considerable damage to the process of EU integration?
Will a new cleavage grounded on attitudes to Europe and capable of
altering the traditional left-right organization emerge in the
French political system?Our warmest
thanks to our colleagues, Chantal Barry, Arianne Chebel
d'Appolonia, and Manlio Cinnalli for their remarks on and their
help with this piece.