Many Reasons could be suggested for as to why France rejected the constitution of the European Union. To look at these issues properly we would need to define what the constitution is and its purpose.

Contemporary Business Issues Allison Giles

France Rejecting the constitution

A constitution is a system that an organisation follows. It is usually a document in written format, which establishes the principles in an organisation which it governs.

In the case of the EU follows a constitution which defines the EU’s fundamental political principles, also establishing the power and duties for each government in within the EU. This also means that each country would have a different level of power.

The proposed constitution’s main aims were to replace overlapping set of existing treaties that comprise the union’s current constitution and streamline decision thus making in what is now a 25 member organisation.

What this means is that the current existing treaties of the EU would be abolished with exception to the EC which would be absorbed and therefore giving the EU some legal personality. The treaties constitutional law would be abolished along with it. This could have been an issue for France, as abolishing its constitutional law could be seen as an issue that is problematic. Reason for this is because it’s the foundation of the EU as they are laws that govern the scope of powers of various bodies along with their authority. This inevitably relates to the creation and destruction of laws that government of each country would have. France is also known to have had serious social problems in the past and is even happening today and in the past weeks as a demonstration of the riots. This was caused when two teenagers were somehow electrocuted to death while being pursued by officers. It has then been related to Islam’s since the area that it happened is predominantly muslins. This could be one point to pick to help us conclude that France have a racial issue. I understand that every country has a racial issue to a certain level of degree but as a whole in comparison to the country’s population the levels would be significantly low.

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With France however the percentage of the population with a racial issue or hate would be quite significant and this would play a major role to the rejection of the newly proposed constitution of the European Union. With this mentality the EU wont be able to grow as its purpose is to expand and for that to happen members of the EU must be able to travel anywhere in within the EU without any discrimination at all with the right to strike. The newly proposed constitution would do this, abolishing the existing treaties, giving each EU citizen their fundamental rights. This would be a world in which each individual is treated equal. But with a country like France it could be argued that it is not possible as the country itself has issues with different ethnicities in their country at the moment. Acceptance of the constitution brings more foreigners into the country; a scenario that fellow French citizens as a majority do not want to undergo. If this is the case how can the EU continue unless the minds of individuals’ views change? It could be seen that France really only care about themselves and are only part of the EU for its benefits. Their actions have caused other countries to post pone their ratification procedures and with that highly uncertain future for the constitution, therefore we cannot predict where the EU will go or what will happen to it.

As said earlier the French have a serious race issue, much of them oppose their own governments support Turkey’s admission into the EU. Such factions that oppose the enlargement of the EU are the anarchists, communists and not surprisingly members of the racist National Front. They reject the constitution as a response to high levels of unemployment which are currently at 10% with fears of losing their jobs to eastern Europeans as more foreigners would migrate to France. Some people may say that it is just a lame excuse; as eastern European citizens are far worse of than western Europeans and that the real issue is that they are from a different cultural background.

More issues that could be raised for the refusal of the constitution are the French as a whole protesting against globalization. In their view globalization is endangering the country’s social safety net. The European Union happens to be a tool of globalization so in fact what France could really be protesting against is the EU itself because you cannot have an EU with no globalization in effect. Issues that could be seen as fair to understand are that with globalization there is the increase activity of terrorism. Turkey would be the first Islamic to join and with that French could say that it is of social concern that amongst fellow Muslims of Turkey there will be the minority that are extremists who can now travel freely throughout the EU forming a network in within the EU conducting terrorist activities proving a huge problem. But then again it could still be said that the French are just over exaggerating the issue and that really it’s basically France that has the problem that needs to be sorted out in their country urgently. They have been described as a nation of navel gazers who only gradually became interested in Europe. They are also described as grumpy and difficult people, well known for answering many things negatively an example of this is where National Front have said no in the referendum towards the constitution.

This concept makes more significant sense as to why France said no in the referendum.

Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/Europe

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/Europe