Those Wacky French Folks

On Sunday, French voters rejected by a 55%-45% margin the proposed new constitution for the European Union. Hours later, the EU moved to shelve the constitution, probably for several years.

French Voters Reject First EU Constitution

EU to put new treaty on ice after French No

I found particularly interesting this line from the first story:

• "This is a great victory," said Fabrice Savel, 38, from the working-class suburb of Aubervilliers. He was distributing posters that read: "No to a free-market Europe."

A free-market Europe is apparently a bad thing for French workers. I would not have guessed that, but I suppose it makes sense. After all, look at how well workers are doing in those countries that still have a command economy. You know, for example, China. Cuba. North Korea. Places like that.

And to think that we were worried about the Russians for all those decades.

With this vote, xenophobes among the French people essentially killed the idea of a politically and economically united Europe, at least for the foreseeable future. Is this a bad thing? I don't know. But I saw that the value of the Euro dropped after the vote, and the rest of the continent can't be happy with that.

We've known for a long time that the French don't like us Americans. They don't like our culture, our politics, or (apparently) our economics. But now it seems they don't like their neighbors either. Of course, that's not entirely unexpected, given their history with those neighbors—especially their military history. (One can only take so many humiliating defeats and remain gracious.)

At least we know now that it's not just us anymore. That's a relief.