Vive la France!!!! Just say non!

[finn17]

Just to balance out Mark\'s American thread...I thought I would take the opportunity to say \'Well done French people!\'.

The whole English/French thing can be a little *cough* strained at times, but what a result!!!

I don\'t know if there will be a referendum in England now. I hope so....just so that we can back you guys up....

The only danger is, now that you have voted \'non\' there will be a lot of Englsh people who will vote \'yes\' just to be awkward:bouncy:

 

[Ritual]

I wonder what will happen next? According to a lot of (euro friendly, bordering on fanatic) so-called experts, a French \'non\' would mean disaster for the whole of Europe, sending us back to the medieval ages and also, apparently, disaster for the entire world since the rest of it wouldn\'t know where Europe is heading! I don\'t know... things have been pretty ordinary today, I\'d say... but what do I know?

Go France!

 

[frenchkid]

aaarghl this is a f*cking disaster.
Europe is certainly not doomed, but france sure is. :|~ And it\'s kinda sad to see half of the people that voted NO don\'t even have a clue what they\'re talking about. A nice suprise their going to get when they\'ll wake up with turkie in the EU, french industries still going to china, and chinese textill everywere because france alone dosn\'t stand a chance to restrain china\'s exports. Better hope I\'ll find a job somwhere els then france because not much of a futur for this country. Maybe in 20 years people will realise how much they fucked up.

 

[Dr Sanch]

God bless \'em.

IMHO If they or we agreed to this constitution it would be disastorous. One thing Europe shouldn\'t be trying to do is morph into a cheap clone of the US. We are all very individual countries and voluntarily giving up some of our powers and laws to be run from Brussels would be crazy. I\'m fine with being in Europe for the trade links et al but things are ok as they are.

 

[finn17]

Calm down, calm down...

Trust me....nothing will actually change. Not for the average Joe anyway. All the issues the scaremongers are panicking about can be addressed in other ways.

The constitution would have gone \'tits up\' anyway because at least 80% of Brits are against it so WTF???

 

[Ritual]

No need to worry! Things aren\'t as black and white as all the propaganda (both for and against the treaty) claims.

 

[green stuff]

Like frenchkid said .

If anybody knows the figures on the percentage of french who actually read the text, I\'d be very interested.

Of course the text isn\'t perfect, but a political Europe is going to be more and more necessary. I can\'t even imagine how the 25 are going to get along with the current texts.

 

[frenchkid]

Oh but it will change things.
France is a samll country wether we like it or not, and unfortunatly politicaly small country do not have any power. That means we cannot defend our national interest. France has a history of greatnesse, but people can\'t get it in their mind that those times are over. Has part of a strong europe France would have retain much more power then now, France is the founding country of europe and that gave her a important status as an european nation. Now we don\'t have any \'soft\' power. Recent exemple ? france was incapable of containing chinas imports, now who is that going to affect ? well all ppeople who work in industries directly concurenced by china.
Other probleme, maastrich wasn\'t writen for 25 countries ( soon to become 27 and most probably 28). wich means basicaly that right now the european union isn\'t a fonctinal form of institution.
Has for angland voting for or against .... well england is not european in my opinion. They join in when they feel it\'s good for them, and like De Gaulle said, they\'re more prone to beeing america\'s lap dog then a real european partner. This is not meant to be offensive, it\'s just the way things are from a political view.

 

[Dr Sanch]

Generally the UK is seen as a bridge between the US and Europe as we have a mix of the two different cultures broadly speaking. As for joining in with Europe when it suits us maybe so but so do many of the other countries or they flout the rules shamelessly. Take the Euro for example, Portugal\'s trade deficit is Twice the agreed maximum but bugger all is done about it hence our reluctance to get involved.

I agree about change being needed to cope with the influx of new countries but what was on offer just wasn\'t right.

 

[Levdir]

Forgive me; I don\'t watch TV and so generally miss out on the news. What\'s going on in the EU? Is this related to Turkey wanting to join the Union?

 

[frenchkid]

The irak crises defintely showed that UK wasn\'t able to live up to theur claim of beeing a bridge beetween the Us and the EU.
And don\'t don\'t put the thing in the past tense, it still applies to all countries who voted for ( 10 so far) and to all those that will. That\'s going to be fun to watch, people in the favor of the NO kept saying there was another option and an other plan to fall back on, truth is Europe is going to move on without france.
As for the deficite probleme I don\'t know about economics enougth to say anything about it. But I do know the euros as improved my buying power And I also think it helps the economie of the countrie, but not sure about that.

And there is no realtion between turkie and the constitution. Another fun thing to watch, all those people who voted no because they were against turkie coming in. I\'d like to see the look on their face when turkie comes in anyway and france won\'t have any power to impose it\'s conditions

 

[Sturmhalo]

We\'ve never liked the French politically... goes back yonks!

lol

 

[Dr Sanch]

@frenchkidAs for the Iraq thing I agree with you entirely. I didn\'t think it was right and neither did the majority of the population a million people marched against it in London, the crazy fools think we live in a democracy

The Euro is very important to the future of europe but there is no chance the UK public want to join it as our economy is good. If countries who have the Euro carry on ignoring the rules and guidelines it will all end very badly.

The expansion of Europe seems relentless, where next I mean North Africa is only across the Med maybe they want to join in the funlol

 

[finn17]

A whole damn can of worms..

IMO we need competion from countries like China, we should be welcoming it. Otherwise our own industries get indolent and lazy.

There was never, ever any chance of a united Europe we all hate each other FFS.

The UK struggles to rein in the aspirations of the Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Cornish and English....

The free trade part was fine..no problems with that but a single political entity??? Not in the next 1000 years if ever.

I took no offense at your lapdog comment, as an Englishman I feel our country has far stronger conections with America than it does with Europe. I also do not consider myself to be a European.
No offense intended on my part either

 

[Ritual]

France is actually another one of the EMU countries that doesn\'t live up to the economical criteria that is agreed upon (at least not a year ago), and that might be part of why your buying power has increased somewhat, Frenchkid! Other EMU countries pay it! The economical problems in Europe and the situation in the world (the Chinese economy for instance) are very complex matters, and this treaty would not change things very dramatically. It is also very difficult to forsee what actual effects there would be and if they are for better or for worse.

 

[frenchkid]

Originally posted by finn17

There was never, ever any chance of a united Europe we all hate each other FFS.

roman empire, charlemagne, alexander the great, barbarossa ( to some extent), western block during the cold war ..... Seems we\'v been united a lot more then we\'ve been devided. And arguing that because we\'v had problems in the past we shouldn\'t move is in my opinion a good way to change nothing. France and Germany have managed to become good parteners

And I\'m all for competition, the constitution did promote it, it\'s in the first few line of it actually
but for us to compete against china we need to be competitve wich we are not. For exemple, for one french employee working 35 hours a week, a companie can have 12 chinese employee working more then 70 hours a week The US promote competition, it didn\'t stop them from limiting chinas\' export. And that only a strong europe can do.

And I\'m all for one country called europe Actually I\'m all for one country called earth .... not going to happen soon I know, but would be much better I think

 

[Bloodfinger]

Originally posted by finn17

The UK struggles to rein in the aspirations of the Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Cornish and English....

Well, the Cornish aren\'t much of a challenge though are they!!



I agree with you on the constitution, let\'s hope the Dutch make it two no\'s in a row, that should kill it off for good.

 

[marineboy]

Meet the new boss....

..same as the old boss!

While the European community publicly reels from the blow dealt by the French to the Union, the shadowy movers and shakers that haunt the real corridors of power will continue to move European politics in whatever direction they wish it to go.

The referendums are all just show for the gallery. Europes future has already been decided by the technocrats and there ain\'t nothing we can do about it.

 

[finn17]

And that is going to last how long exactly..???

Originally posted by frenchkid
France and Germany have managed to become good partners

For a while yes, but there will soon be arguments. France is as much under threat from the right wing as Germany is. I appreciate your ideals, but we can\'t have a united Europe whilst we still have such huge, internal divisions as individual countries...

 

[finn17]

Ahhh..don\'t you believe it..

Originally posted by Bloodfinger
Well, the Cornish aren\'t much of a challenge though are they!!

We are all in secret training...

That was said with tongue firmly in cheek. But some of my neighbours do believe, quite strongly, that Cornwall is \'separate\' from England. As I am a good old Essex boy myself, I just laugh

@Marineboy: You probably hit the nail on the head