Three guesses as to who said that. Me, good guess, but wrong. Jack? Also good guess, but still wrong. Yes, that's right,
Jacques Chirac. Yesterday, the Head Cheese went on tv with a townhall style meeting in order to try to convince the country that they should vote "Oui!" in the upcoming May 29th referrendum for France's acceptance of the European Constitution. Seems like his future threats are more of a slow-to-the-party realization of France's actual status in the world. In the "Non!" camp are about 53%-55% of polled voters in France and Chirac's own party, the "Union for a Popular Majority." Sad times for one of the founders of the EU.
Greece's parliment is voting on Tuesday (04/19/2005) to see if it'll join the four other countries that have approved the EU Constitution (Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia and Italy) [according to CNN.com... I thought Spain had also ratified it? Maybe that was just the "Si!" referrendum which needs to be formally approved by their socialist government. I'll check into that.]
The Economist has a rather pithy analysis (
Can the constitution be saved?, 04/15/2005) of what'd happen if France says no on the 29th which highlights the utter bureaucratic morass that can happen when things are decided by committee. In a way, it's the height of Democracy, stagnation of decision at a governmental level that allows for the third and fourth tiers of society to function.