Giscard: France’s rejection of the Constitution was a ‘mistake’

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. 

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Parliament under German spell?

As Angela Merkel celebrates her one hundredth day as the German Chancellor, the British liberal MEP Graham Watson accuses her government of keeping the European Parliament under Berlin command.