The plans for European unity are embodied in the Maastricht Treaty, which calls for monetary union by 1999 and closer cooperation on defense and foreign policy. Danish voters have already rejected the treaty. If the French follow suit, in a referendum on Sept. 20, Maastricht is as good as dead. Existing European Community institutions would survive; the 12-nation internal market would come into effect, as scheduled, next Jan. 1. But French rejection of the treaty would stop progress toward further integration, postponing the creation of a single European currency and the establishment of a powerful European central bank.
Some Germans would welcome the treaty’s defeat; they do not want to see their powerhouse shackled to less efficient partners. But a halt to European integration would dishearten millions of East Europeans, who look to eventual EC membership as an anchor in the Communist world. In the short run, rejection of the treaty would comfort those who want to maintain a large U.S. military presence in Europe and a strong NATO. But the costs would be high: a continuing dependence on Washington in security matters and an increasingly resented burden on U.S. taxpayers.
Most of the French turnaround occurred in August, while the pro-unity establishment was complacently on vacation. There seemed to be nothing to worry about last spring, when President Francois Mitterrand announced a referendum on Maastricht. The treaty appeared to point the way to a new and stronger Europe, capable of standing up to the United States as a great power in the post-communist world. In early polls, two out of three French voters supported Maastricht. But then a nationalistic campaign by treaty opponents changed all that. The Yes and No votes are now virtually even, and the outcome of the referendum is too close to call.
All of France’s mainstream political parties support the treaty. The only parties officially opposing it are the Communists and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s xenophobic National Front, which together command about a quarter of the national vote. But within eight weeks, support for Maastricht fell from a 26-point lead in the opinion polls to virtual parity. The opposition was spearheaded by a hardworking band of renegade Gaullists, headed by Philippe Seguin, a former social-affairs minister, and Marie-France Garaud, who was an aide to President Georges Pompidou. In the Socialist camp, opposition crystallized around Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a former defense minister who broke with Mitterrand during the gulf war.
While the pro-Maastricht forces sunned themselves, Seguin and his allies dominated the TV talk shows and ground out an avalanche of pamphlets and books. Maastricht, they warned, would submerge France in a soup of Euromediocrity. The national government and Parliament would lose power to the anonymous, unelected " Eurocrats" in Brussels. A wave of standardization would rob French wine and cheese of their distinctive flavors. The German juggernaut would virtually dictate French economic policy. “We favor Europe,” Seguin trumpeted, “but not this Europe. Let’s renegotiate.”
Events inside and outside France strengthened the no-sayers’ hand. Mitterrand himself is at a low ebb of popularity after 11 years in office, and two out of five No voters have told pollsters they primarily oppose the president, not the treaty. The slaughter in Yugoslavia, which the EC has been unable to stop or even slow, has convinced many voters that efforts to achieve a common foreign policy are in vain. Violence against immigrants in Rostock and other German cities chilled many Frenchmen, who feared a revival of fascism and German nationalism. And the sudden surge of the Deutsche mark on the currency markets, partly a result of pre-referendum jitters, alarmed those who worry about German domination of the French economy.
The French establishment finally woke up last week. Former president Valery Giscard d’Estaing, leader of France’s centrist parties, and Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac, head of the neo-Gaullists, hit the campaign trail in earnest. Mitterrand himself took on Seguin in an hour long televised debate. A pro-treaty citizens’ group studded with celebrities-from actor Gerard Depardieu to couturier Yves SaintLaurent-sprang into action. Jacques Delors, the French president of the EC Commission in Brussels, warned he would quit if the treaty failed. As a result, two of three polls released last week showed the Yes votes drawing slightly ahead. But a quarter of the electorate remained undecided. The fate of continued European integration may lie in the hands of a few thousand wavering Frenchmen.
