European showdown in France

Yes camp:

President Jacques Chirac: "One cannot be European and vote no. The EU treaty is the daughter of 1789."

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin: "If we refuse this treaty, Europe will be knocked out." It would plunge France into "a political crisis which would translate into lengthy months of economic crisis".

"It is the EU that protects France against major market forces."

"France will express itself, it will express itself once, there will be no second round or second chance. Once she has spoken, her message is clear."

Green MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit has accused the no camp of nurturing an "Asterix complex" and dreaming up an eternal French exception: "Why is it only the French trade unions that are against the constitution? Could it be that the rest don't know how to read?"

Simone Veil, former president of the European Parliament: "It gets very difficult when the subject [of a referendum] is complicated. As soon as it is a little bit complicated, people don't answer the question they are being asked". 

Alain Minc, intellectual: "How can the opponents of the Bolkestein directive believe for one second that France, after having voted no, will still find the resources to hit the table with a clenched fist and talk loud, as President Chirac has made it his habit?"

Martin Schulz, German socialist MEP leader: "We must say to the French population: Why should we have to pay the price because you are rightfully unsatisfied with the politics of PM Raffarin?"

Martine Aubry, socialist and former minister: "All the French laws favouring women's rigths have emanated from the EU. Equal pay for men and women, non discrimination, laws protecting pregnant women, fight against violence towards women or prostitution." 

Bernard Layre, president of Young Farmers, JA: "Let's avoid all confusion. The constitution is not the CAP. The constitution re-enforces political powers [at EU level]. That is a not a guarantee, but still it is a step towards being able to fight European bureaucracy." 

Jacques Delors, former Commission president: "I repeat: a no will lead to paralysis of the EU, a weakening of France and create a major stumbling block towards creating a stronger Europe."

Lionel Jospin, former socialist Prime Minister: "Let's not hold Europe hostage to our national difficulties. The term 'liberal' doesn't have any sense. The EU is not liberal because it provides a framework. I hope the left will unite to change the EU, not to block it."

Catherine Lalumière, former vice president of the European Parliament and current president of the House of Europe in Paris: "It is not a Constitution; it is only a treaty, although admittedly important, [and] above all a decisive step in the construction of Europe." It is also a "compromise" with an inevitable imperfect and insufficient dimension that must be accepted by France - which has "a tendency to consider itself as alone in the world, or even superior to the rest of the world".

Pascal Perrineau, director of Cevipof, the Centre for the Study of French Political Life: "It's intriguing. There is a historical, if passive, consensus in France in favour of Europe. But as soon as you ask a concrete question, pro-EU sentiment melts." 

Leading pollster Roland Cayro: "There's a clear division between a well-off, confident France and an anxious, struggling France. These are two countries."

Analyst Alain Duhamel, sees France in the grip of  "a generalised economic malaise, inspired by rising unemployment, stagnant salaries, falling spending power, pension worries, the fear of jobs being lost abroad, of Poles and Lithuanians taking jobs here. It's a no to today's world; a no to a frightening world."

The no camp:

Former socialist PM, Laurent Fabius: "This is not a referendum, this is propaganda." Fabius has accused President Chirac of spreading lies by claiming that the Constitution will pave the way for social harmonisation in the EU.

"I am a convinced European and I want a good Constitution. The one offer is not. It must therefore be improved in a more social more citizen-friendly way."

Jacques Nikonoff, president of Attac France: "the Europe being built is a non-democratic Europe". In his opinion, the draft constitutional treaty is symptomatic of a "deeply flawed" system. "To establish an effective Constitution it would have been necessary to set up a constituent assembly giving a voice to the people," said Mr. Nikonoff. "The 'no' vote is a vote for hope" as it is, in effect, the rejection of a model based on "worsened competition, pushing the states to put forward their only comparable advantage: fiscal and social dumping."

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of National Front: "The Prime Minster tries to scare by convincing the French that the river Seine will stop running, that all will go bad, with an economic crisis, if the 'no' wins."

The contribution of union, CGT, Confederation Generale du Travail: "The implications of the 'market first" approach and the central position given to competition remain striking, and therefore potentially destructive for social rights, public services, employment and the social and economic cohesion of EU as a whole."

Marie George Buffet, French Communist Party: "Liberalism will be set in stone by the Constitution. Do we want that Europe, or do we want another Europe? That is what is at stake. The1992 debate on the Maastricht Treaty was locked into a sterilising "yes or no to Europe". That won't work anymore, our citizens want to speak up on what direction the EU must take. 

José Bové, Confédération Paysanne: "We want to see a democratic Europe, a social Europe and an anti-liberal Europe."