From: A day in the office Blog of 30.05.05. Fifteen Million Frenchmen Can't
Be Wrong



Editor's note: One nanometer behind the push to sustainable development and
social justice lies that thing called politics, the art or science of
government. It's a never ending process of learning, communicating and
adapting. As this Op-Ed piece written in the immediate wake of the French
referendum rejecting the proposed European constitution.
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Fifteen Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong

Or How in 2005 the French Saved Europe for Civilization



Eric Britton, EcoPlan International, Paris, 30 May 2005.

6:30 a.m. The morning after. It's France. Pow!



The radio alarm explodes and I am dragged into the new day by the
self-pitying howls and doomsday messages coming from Right and Left alike in
the wake of yesterday's Referendum in which a clear majority of the voters
gave a resounding "No" to the proposed new constitution for Europe. As the
news streamed in I was suddenly reminded of a phrase we used back in the
late fifties when I was a buck private in the (US) army making the world
safe for democracy. (You noticed I hope!).

We said back then, with only half a smile, that ours was a classic situation
of: "The incompetent leading the unwilling to do the unnecessary". And if
ever there were a single phrase that captured the mood here today, that has
to be as good as any.



The key to today's apparent conundrum here lies in the first third of that
noble phrase -- leadership failure. Not the second. Nor the third. Let's
have a look.



Neither the government nor the parties of the Right (same thing these days)
were able to make a convincing case for what should have been a simple win.
To the contrary they made such a great hash out of their explanations that a
substantial portion of the electorate voted against the treaty simply
because their supposed leaders and mentors were grossly incompetent of
making their case. Air ball.



And as often happens here the apparatchiks of the Left, our dear Socialists,
were unable to do any better. They shot themselves in the foot in the last
presidential election three years ago when it should have been a shoo-in.
And this time they did it again. It seems to be an art form over here.



The least of their problem was that they couldn't stop bickering among
themselves and hence were unable to present a united face.



But here's the real joke: Even if they had managed to present a united
front, they still would not have been able to make their point. You see,
they simply can't figure out who they are and what it is they want for their
country. Right and Left in France are terminally confused. Sound familiar
America?



The simple truth is that the making of "Europe" is serious and important
business that commits the people of France to a future. Look, if you don't
know what is going on, you would have to be a fool to plunge into that dark
space. Dark space? Well 500 pages, 448 articles and 36 supplementary
protocols is hardly what you would call light on the subject. And yesterday
there were some fifteen million Frenchmen who came to the polls and said:
Whoa, we better have a look before we jump.



But not all the problems were with the leadership vacuum here in our
obdurate impenetrable Hexagon.

The second gross agent of self-destruction was the all but comical
performance and pandering incompetence of the European institutions: the
European Commission, the Parliament, the European Bank and the rest. The
Great White Hope of Europe? Hardly. Their representatives wandered in from
time to time with weak smiles, tepid words, and a bit of finger pointing
here and there; but they too had nothing commanding to offer. And if the
European project cannot be made clear by its own leaders, well we can't be
all that harsh on our national politicians here in France.

The outstanding lesson was that no one trusts the politicians. And not only
here.



And, or so it often goes, that nobody trusts what many see as over-paid
blinkered neo-Soviet decisioncrats in Brussels whose concern for their own
cushioned jobs and prerogatives far outstrips not only their commitment to
but also their understanding of what "Europe" is supposed to be all about.



Hmm. Okay, it's always great fun to whine, but is there any good news? Well
happily there is plenty of it. And if we can get a good grasp of this then
we are well positioned to decide as to what to do next.

For starters, the last two months of the information program and public
debate has been a significant first for this Republic. There has been
nothing like a true citizen consultation of what Europe is supposed to be
all about here over these last decades, and this too was a critical lynchpin
of the leadership failure.



But this time the debate took place and the level of citizen involvement and
interest was very high indeed. Everybody - quite literally - talked about
it, argued, polemicized and occasionally even listened over these last heady
weeks. And if you take into account the appalling performance of their
leaders in explicating the issues, the fact that some seventy percent of the
electorate actually went to the polls to place their votes on a sunny day in
May is an enormous vindication for the entire process. Bingo! Democracy is
alive and well in France.



Second: the polls made a clear statement to Paris and Brussels alike. Stop!
Think! Confer! Clarify! Convince! And the message has been sent that the
citizens of France expect to be directly involved in this process. I think
we should be able to work with that, though some new habits are going to
have to be acquired on all sides to make this work.

And finally, there is another phenomenon at work here about which we are not
hearing much in the press, and that is the somewhat arcane concept of "swarm
intelligence". Defined typically as the results of collective behaviour in
<http://www.mywiseowl.com/articles/Decentralisation> decentralized,
<http://www.mywiseowl.com/articles/Self_organization> self-organized systems
within which there are very large numbers of individual units - which sounds
like a good working definition of 21st century democracy to me.



The interesting thing about swarm intelligence is its suggestion that large
groups can develop a degree of cognition and even understanding of which the
individual parts are not necessarily capable. Think about it. Fifteen
million Frenchmen put their heads together sent a message that is more than
the sum of its individual parts.



Alexis de Tocqueville put it this way when he contemplated the lessons, if
any, that America might offer for Old World. In
<http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EHYPER/DETOC/home.html> Democracy in America,
he wrote: "In democratic countries knowledge of how to combine is the mother
of all other

forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others."



"Knowledge of how to combine ". Precisely the process that must now be
engaged in France. All but the most spaced out souls here know fully well
that Europe is a great idea and great ideal. But someone needs to explain to
us precisely what it means. Clarity of thought , followed by engagement of
intelligence and informed decisions. Which is what those fifteen million
Frenchmen are asking for.



Stay tuned. This is far from over. And one day you may find yourself
explaining to your grandchildren, how in 2005 the French saved Europe for
civilization.



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Eric Britton is an international consultant to government and industry who
has lived and worked in Paris since 1969. He can be reached at
mail@....









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