PARIS, 1 June 2005 — French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin became the first victim of a crisis over the European Union’s constitution yesterday as EU leaders braced for Dutch voters to follow France and reject the charter.
French President Jacques Chirac accepted Raffarin’s resignation and appointed loyal ally and Iraq war critic Dominique de Villepin to replace him in a government shake-up that had become inevitable after voters rejected the treaty. He also turned to a rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, to help restore national unity.
Chirac made Raffarin the scapegoat for Sunday’s failure and said in a televised address to the nation that France’s “no” vote was “not the rejection of the European ideal.” Instead, the French leader said, the outcome of the referendum was a demand for action and results.
Chirac confirmed he was bringing Sarkozy, a two-time minister and potential rival, back into the new government “in a spirit of coming together.”
He said creating jobs would be the priority of the new government.
Villepin took over from Raffarin with a handshake at an official ceremony. He has the task of steadying the ship of state as the 72-year-old president considers whether to seek a third term in a presidential election due in 2007. Villepin, 51, has good relations with his European allies, but he angered the United States with his fierce opposition to the US-led war in Iraq when he was foreign minister, and US-French ties are only now emerging from a deep chill.
Villepin will have to rebuild public trust in a leadership that has lost the faith of voters because of economic problems including unemployment, which remained at a five-year high of 10.2 percent in new figures released yesterday.
The result of Sunday’s referendum plunged the 25-nation EU as well as France into crisis. Those problems are likely to deepen when the Netherlands holds its referendum on the treaty today.
Concerns that the charter, intended to ensure the enlarged EU runs smoothly, is now close to death helped drive the euro down to new seven-month lows against the dollar and unsettled stocks and bonds.
A new poll in the Netherlands showed 60 percent of voters opposed the charter, five percentage points more than the number who rejected the constitution in France. One poll even showed 65 percent of voters plan to vote against.
The euro sank as low as $1.2312 before rising again, and the British pound hit a four-week high against the euro. This reflected the EU’s problems, which also include an early election soon in Germany — which is with France the traditional driving force of European integration. “It’s not clear what will happen to Europe,” said Daragh Maher, a senior currency strategist in London. “A lot of questions have been raised by this vote and none of this is immediately positive.”
The EU’s first constitution sets new rules for the Union designed to make decision-making easier after it took in 10 new members last year, mostly from eastern Europe, but it requires the backing of all 25 member states to go into force.
