[Jeff Head]

British diplomats believe that Mr Chirac will call for France, Germany and other nations to form a "core Europe" in which they can push ahead with integration without being held back by laggards such as Britain.

Fortress Europa?

[Torie]

British diplomats believe that Mr Chirac will call for France, Germany and other nations to form a "core Europe"

Ludicrous.

[Paul Atreides]

Chiraq's anger is nothing. It's those armpits you have to watch out for.

[basil]

Why do I always think of sheep being led to the slaughter when I hear about the European Union?

[Fruitbat]

British diplomats believe that Mr Chirac will call for France, Germany and other nations to form a "core Europe" in which they can push ahead with integration without being held back by laggards such as Britain.

ROFLMAO!!!

Yeah, join the most backward collection of retarded political idiots or get left behind.

Thank you sir, may I have another!

[Chode]

[Captain Peter Blood]

I predicted many years ago that the idea of the Eu was destined to fail as countries started to realize that they were giving up way too much for what they were getting.
The Spirit of Nationalism would soon rear it's head and that would be the undoing of the whole idea and of course it started with the smaller countries like Denmark and the Netherlands who would not want to be totally overshadowed by their bigger rivals particularly France & Germany.
The whole thing has been ill conceived and thought out, most especially the EU Constitution itself which tries to address and redress any potential and imagined wrongs and runs I believe over 300 pages. What a mess.
France being France and the French people being the snobs they are are now having second thoughts and I think they will vote not to ratify but I also think it will be a close vote.
All the French have to do is look around at the insane immigration polices they have and all of the Muslim Ghettos that are all over the place to realize that their unique culture that they prize almost above all else is sinking into the Abyss and they along with it.
This whole thing is unraveling along with 60 plus years of Socialism that has brought their countries to their knees and this is the end result.

[Malesherbes]

France and Germany will form a "core." Chirac had better check with Angela Merkel first. His old buddy Gerhard won't be around after September.

[burzum]

"British diplomats believe that Mr Chirac will call for France, Germany and other nations to form a "core Europe" in which they can push ahead with integration without being held back by laggards such as Britain. However, Mr Blair and Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, want to use Britain's six-month EU presidency, which begins on July 1, to argue that eurozone economies need flexible British and American-style economies rather than heavy regulation and tax harmonisation."

France is not pleased because some members are not nearly as socialist as they are. A little research I did from the CIA factbook on several countries' revenue to GDP (makes it easy to pick out the socialist ones):

• US--16.2%
• Japan--37.0%
• Germany--47.5%
• United Kingdom--41.3%
• France--53.1%

Even though the EU has about 500 million people, they have an economy (based on GDP of about $11 trillion) about the same size as the US only with drastically higher taxes. The socialist laws make it harder for businesses to take risky but potentially profitable strategies. Additional socialist regulations and tariffs make it difficult for start up companies to compete. France's actions are out of desperation to keep a socialist control of Europe. The UK is rejecting France's socialistic actions, so France wants them gone. Fortunately, it will not hurt the UK in the long term.

[dead]

British diplomats believe that Mr Chirac will call for France, Germany and other nations to form a "core Europe"

Geography aside, can we get them to take Canada too?

[Vince Ferrer]

core Europe

They should face facts and just name it old Europe.

[Pete'sWife]

Chirac Ready To Turn His Anger On Blair If France Votes Non

In other words, he'll surrender.

[Paleo Conservative]

[Lancey Howard]

France doesn't like the EU Constitution because it isn't socialist enough, lol. And if even a socialist welfare state like Britain thinks it's too socialist, just imagine how bad it must be. Whew....

Old Europe is such an irrelevant and useless toilet.....

[DoughtyOne]

French - The biggest joke on the planet

At least it looks like the French citizens are going to get this one right, for now.

[You Dirty Rats]

Government sources are braced for the French president to round on the Prime Minister and blame him for making the constitution too "Anglo-Saxon" on economic issues

Since the head of the group that wrote the EU Constitution was a former FRENCH President (Valerie Giscard d'Estaing), it will be difficult for Chiraq to convince anyone that it's Tony Blair's fault.

[goldstategop]

ROFL! Chiraq's crutch for his failures as a leader: whip the English!

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[John Lenin]

And Kyoto doesn't go into effect until 2006 ...

[Red Sea Swimmer]

Vote NON Frenchies !

Vive La France !

[SouthernFreebird]

They vote on Sunday? how weird.