Mission Impossible?
The Aristocrat Trying to get France to Reject Europe
by Kim Willsher

The aristocratic Philippe de Villiers is a man on a seemingly impossible mission: to persuade the French to turn their backs on the European Union, the institution they helped to found and have been at the heart of for more than half a century.

Last week, his dream became closer to reality when President Jacques Chirac finally announced he would hold a national referendum on the proposed constitution before the end of next year.

"I have my work cut out but in the next 18 months I will not stop. I will travel the length and breadth of France until I am exhausted on my feet to persuade people to vote no," Mr de Villiers, a French MP and former government minister, told The Sunday Telegraph. "The Europe of Brussels has no future. It is finished."

On his country-wide crusade, Mr de Villiers, 55, a staunch Catholic, royalist and Anglophile, will bear the words of one leading British Eurosceptic very much in mind.

"I had the very good fortune to meet Mrs Thatcher once in London," he revealed. "We talked about Europe and I remember very clearly what she told me. It was after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and she said, 'We have not escaped the totalitarianism of commissioners from the east to fall under the totalitarianism of commissioners from the west".

"It is true. The Europe of today is rigid, centralized, uniform and authoritarian."

The first step on Mr de Villiers's long road to convince the French to say "non" comes tomorrow when he will meet British Eurosceptics, including members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). Anti-Europe campaigners from Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark are also expected to attend the meeting in Strasbourg. It aims to co-ordinate individual national "no" campaigns and to establish a Europe-wide anti-constitution bloc….

…."Everyone has the impression that the French are very Europhile, when in fact there is a very deep vein of anti-Europe feeling," he said. "The problem is that because France doesn't have a Eurosceptic media, unlike in the UK, there is no debate and people have no way of expressing this dissatisfaction."

For France's Eurosceptics, this is the first chance to rally anti-European sentiment since the national referendum on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. It was only narrowly approved, with fewer than 51 per cent of voters in favour.

Since then, there has been a sense of growing disillusionment with the EU. France's failure to keep its economy within the Europe-wide Stability and Growth Pact has led to unpopular public spending cuts. The introduction of the euro has not led to the promised growth and increased employment and has, many believe, pushed up prices. In the recent European elections, Mr Chirac's ruling pro-Europe UMP party suffered a humiliating defeat, gaining just 17 per cent of the vote.

The constitution is also dividing political parties. Publicly the UMP party favours ratification but privately, backing for the constitution is far from unanimous. France's Socialist Party has yet to announce whether it will call for a "yes" vote, while some members have expressed deep dissatisfaction with the document.

Jean-Marie Le Pen's Right Wing Front National is opposed to it, while at the other extreme of the political spectrum, the Communist Party is also calling for a "no" vote.

Mark Croucher, of the UKIP, said that his party would work with the French "no" campaign but admitted he was not optimistic Mr de Villiers would succeed. "We will give them as much help and advice as they ask for, but it's for the French people to decide and not us."

"Undoubtedly what will happen in France is that there will be huge funds thrown into an official campaign pointing out the benefits of European membership, while the "No" campaign struggles on doing what it can without a great many resources. As a result, France is the country where we are least likely to see a fair referendum."

Mr de Villiers refuses to be beaten before he has even started. "I am campaigning to explain to the French that we already have a constitution - that of the Fifth Republic," he said. "There are plenty of other problems to sort out rather than replacing that constitution with new European rules which will establish a bureaucratic superstate."
The Sunday Telegraph, 18th July 2004