Le Vote
The polls open today in the DOM-TOM -- at 12H00 heure de Paris in Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, at 13H00 Guyane, and 14H00 in Guadeloupe and Martinique, and at 20H00 in New Caledonia, Polynesia (Tahiti), and Wallis and Futuna islands. I haven't found out yet when the polls open in Réunion or Mayotte.
The polling data showed that Chirac's plea for "oui" yesterday picked up 1%, with the projected outcome "non" by a vote of 53% to 47%. The title to the graphic reads "Only the supporters of the right (UDF and UMP) in the legislature support the "oui" vote.
It is amazing how Ameican the European press and discourse has become. It is all about fictions of "Europe" and fictions of "East vs West" (sell by date reached) and fictions of "US vs EU" and fictions of ... various statist articles of faith. All it misses to be a replay of 1914 is crowned heads in the political cartoon pages. History as politics, alliances, and above all, Princes and Kings. Kitchen table issues are marginalized, yet that is the core of the "non" critique of promoting neo-liberalism to the core of the draft text.