North Sea Diaries:
Raffarin, as expected, is to get the chop. Le Monde reports:
In a televised speech on Sunday evening, President Jacques Chirac announced that he had ?noted? the significant No vote on the European Constitution and that he would make a decision ?in the coming few days? about his government? Jacques Chirac said he [...]

According to the initial estimates from the French agency CSA for ‘France info’ the no vote has carried the day, by 55.5% to 44.5%: a huge difference
OK, I guess the debate can now begin.
Update: Live blogging of the referendum and its imapct going on over here.

I wonder about something… One of the arguments for the constitution, (and for the whole Nice treaty before it), is the changed voting rules are necessary because the increase in members would make the EU dysfunctional, and unable to make decisions. I was always kind of sceptical of that, but it was almost me alone [...]

In part this vote may be decided by differing participation rates across the regions. It is clear that in some Departments the participation rates are very high. I just heard a reporter in Picardy. Apparently the anti-Maastricht (remember even the Maastricht vote was only a ‘petit oui’) sentiment was high in Picardy. Today they have [...]

People will vote no for many different reasons, some for opposite reasons. But it seems clear to me some complaints will be shared by nearly all no voters, as well as many yes voters. Namely, that the EU is undemocratic, that the elites don?t care what the people say, that integration has been pursued without [...]

No one’s asking me, but I’d vote “oui”. Should you be interested to know why, I’ve laid out my reasons in luckily idiomatically edited French in my replies to publius’ questions, which they posted yesterday. They also posted the Eulogist’s replies as well as a plethora of their own reasons for their personal final decisions [...]

Update I: Participation rates at 19:00 have just been released: 66,24 %. This means that it will surely clearly surpass the Maastricht final participation of 69,69 %. The poll estimates are talking about a final participation of 75%. This is big for a topic which many said was ‘abstract’. In Spain, the particpation was [...]

A couple of weeks ago, Versac from the French blog Publius sent me a bunch of questions concerning my views on the EU and the Constitution. They’re interviewing a number of non-French bloggers in this way. I thought I’d publish my answers here. A sample:
The main negative thing is that it’s giving the EU more [...]

I’m quite fond of representative democracy, and don’t think replicating the Swiss or Californian system would be a particularly good idea. I do however think that referendums are an occasionally vital and necessary part of democracy, and to do away with them, like the German constitution does, would be a great mistake.
There are situations where [...]

DJ Nozem: Spinning the ‘No’
Euan MacDonald (Transatalantic Assembly): A little more on the EU Constitution
S?bastien Llorca (The Fundamental principles of…) Towards a NO in France? Why?
Nosemonkey: Europe is not ambitious enough
Jerome a Paris (Daily Kos): France Votes (VII). It’s tomorrow. My bet.
Ulrich Speck: Making Sense of The French Vote. A Study in Orwellianism
Belgravia Dispatch: [...]