The Constitution needs to have a second chance, says Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, France’s former president and ‘father’ of the Constitutitional treaty.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who in 2002-2003 presided over the Convention that prepared the Constitutional treaty, has argued that it was a mistake, that the French voters rejected the Constitution at a referendum in May 2005:
“The French people were not against according to opinion polls..[..]..The rejection of the Constitutional treaty by voters in France was a mistake that should be corrected,” said Valéry Giscard d’Estaing speaking at London School of Economics on 28 February. He blamed bad presentation and a general loss of interest among the political classes.
He wants the Constitution to have a “second chance”, but only after France’s presidential and general elections in 2007. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing proposes that the two first parts of the Constitution could be subject to a new referendum, whereas the third and more controversial part would be subject to a parliamentary vote.
