France's Constitutional Dilemma

Constitutional problems exist elsewhere within the EU as evidenced by this article: Can the President overrule the people? We have here, then, an "amending" treaty that thus affirms that a charter that is not part of it has the same legal force as the very treaties that it serves to modify! A more contorted legal procedure has never been seen..... As anyone who followed the 2005 French referendum campaign can recall, during the campaign all the provisions of the treaty were criticized. Some of the critics focused on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and on the common policies; others on the transfer of powers to the European level, the shift from unanimity to majority voting, and the democracy deficit; and still others took offense at the federal symbols and principles. It is perhaps possible to perceive that the "no" of the Left was more concerned by the threat to the welfare state and the "no" of the Right by the loss of the state's sovereign powers. But it is surely impossible and inconceivable to probe the brain of each French citizen and thereby make out exactly the provisions of the treaty that each individual rejected and those that he or she approved.