First Non is the Deepest

UPDATED below

Good news from Europe, says MaxedOutMama, "it is pretty clear that the proposed EU constitution will get nay votes from France (Sunday) and The Netherlands (Friday 6/3)." She's right--and, unsurprisingly, France already surrendered:

The leader of France’s ruling party has privately admitted that Sunday’s referendum on the European constitution will result in a “no” vote, throwing Europe into turmoil.

“The thing is lost,” Nicolas Sarkozy told French ministers during an ill-tempered meeting. “It will be a little ‘no’ or a big ‘no’,” he was quoted as telling Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the Prime Minister, whom he accused of leading a feeble campaign.

M_O_M hopes rejecting the Constitution will teach Europeans TANSTAAFL. Given Europe's pessimism, over-regulation and accelerating demographic suicide, I doubt it. Unless they call it a do-over and vote 'till they win. Otherwise, except for Ireland, England and perhaps the Netherlands, I concur with Bloggledygook's more realistic assessment, "Oh to be in Paris now that Spring and disaster are here."

More:

Roger Cohen in the International Herald Tribune:

The specters haunting the troubled French soul are many and varied as a critical vote on a wordy European constitution approaches: Polish plumbers (determined to steal French jobs); Turkish hordes (with similar intent); unfettered "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism; a domineering United States; and, not least, Brussels bureaucrats.

If that seems a motley collection of menaces on which to base an important decision, so be it. The French economy, unlike the British, is sagging, and the search for scapegoats is on.

To his credit, Cohen quoted a (near-extinct) free-market Frenchman. Still, the IHT (owned by the NY Times) reporter couldn't resist including his blue-state views:

In France, as in Germany, disgruntlement has become a national condition, one that crosses party and class lines. Even within Chirac's Union for a Popular Movement, sentiment against the proposed EU constitution is often strong, as I found when I encountered a bristling deputy named Nicolas Dupont-Aignan.

He greeted me the other day with a tirade - against the antidemocratic smuggling of Turkey into the EU, against the loss of French veto powers in EU discussions ("How can I give up my joker?"), against the loss of French sovereignty and freedom, against the niggling intrusions of Brussels into everyday life.

"Look," he said, "I just spent over $1 million in my home town of Yerres on modernizing 16 traffic lights because there's some EU regulation saying the yellow light has to flash automatically when they break down. That's the price of a new school."

He went on to describe the constitution as "like the Soviet Union's in its attempt to lay down economic policy, an example we should not be emulating." While that claim is an exaggeration, it is true that the third part of the treaty goes into considerable detail on economic principles whose place in a document of this kind seems dubious.

A French Non would delay Prime Minister Tony Blair's plans for a similar referendum in the U.K.

(via Nickie Goomba)

Still More:

Patrick Ruffini speculates on cause and affect:

If the last thirteen consecutive polls are correct, then the European Constitution will be voted down by the French in a referendum on Sunday. With Gerhard Schroeder down by 17 points ahead of next fall's elections, it has not been a good few weeks for the Axis of Weasels. And of what the leaders who stood on principle? Bush -- re-elected. Howard -- re-elected. Blair -- re-elected.

Ruffini also predicts eventual ratification under the "do-over" theory: "Whenever a nation gives 'the wrong answer' in a referendum on Europe, out-of-touch europhile elites call a mulligan and resubmit a 'renegotiated' treaty before a weary public, who usually succumb."

(via Joe's Dartblog)