As for acquis sociaux, that's easy and was well known at the time. Article one sets out that there should be no rules or any other impediment to undistorted markets within the Union, and of course at the time, we had Bolkestein concretely remind everyone what this meant in practise. If you do not think this would ultimately undermine not just solidarity mechanisms we have in place, but also wages themselves, you certainly were a distinct minority upon partisans on the left, of whom virtually all LCR and PCF voted against, and some exit polls had even the PS-electorate voting up to 60% against. The PS leadership was ok with it (hell, I think Hollande and Sarkozy become drinking buddies over the whole thing), not the rank and file.
On top of this, there were the military aspects of the treaty telling member states to spend more, and specific language about relationship with Nato, objectionable to many.
Other objectionable things...it specifically weakened labor by putting the right of firms to lock out employees into the constitution. It also had specific language prohibiting capital controls, and some vague language on prohibiting anything which impedes free enterprise, and I'll let you guess where that one goes.
Finally on the rights charter, it frankly is a watering down of the rights to a job or minimum revenue, to housing, et c., none of which are specifically named as positive rights, and this is important especially when you consider all the neo-liberal wet dream language.
So, it was a bad constitution, the left voted overwhelmingly against, I did too, and the Irish are reminding us now exactly why it was important to reject it: once adopted, it is damn near impossible to modify. A sliver of a minority of one tiny country can impact the labor rights of 300 million active workforce. No thanks. Yes to Europe, but no to that one.
But I'll give you this...your red-baiting is charming.
Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
French European Constitution referendum, 2005 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On 1 December 2004, the opposition Socialist Party held a vote among its members to determine the stance it would take. The issue of the Constitution had caused considerable divisions within the party, with many members--although broadly in favour of European integration--opposing the Constitution for reasons including a perceived lack of democratic accountability, and the threat they considered it posed to the European social model. The "Yes" side was led by party leader François Hollande while the "No" side was led by deputy leader Laurent Fabius. Out of 127,027 members eligible to vote, 59% voted "Yes", with a turnout of 79%. Out of 102 Socialist Party regional federations, 26 voted "No".
The Bolkestein (services) directive was not hard-wired into either the treaties or the Constitution. The directive was pushed because of the dominant neoliberal sentiment at the time among national governments and within the Commission (and sadly we haven't made much progress since then on those fronts...). Its neoliberal elements were ultimately defeated by a pan-European protest led by the labour movements and an effective PES rapporteur in the European Parliament.
And you can say all you want that I am simply repeating the bullet points of the non campaign, because you claim I cannot say anything specific about what it's adoption would have done. In this, you present a red herring, because of course the purpose of a constitution is not to be overly specific, to provide broad guidelines, and, well, those broad guidelines, as drafted, were neo-liberal in intent and the bias it would have had on further interpretation of national statute equally would have been neo-liberal. No one argued that the constitution would expressly do away with the 35 hour week, RTT, 5 weeks vacation, right to housing, income supports, access to health care, farm subsidies or whatever via specific language in the constitution. What was argued was that this would be the logical eventual conclusion, a conclusion whose ineluctability was demonstrated by the attempt to ram the Bolkestein directive down everyone's throat at the same time.
And, you are free to dispute that interpretation but at least be frank enough to admit that, on the left, your viewpoint was quite a minoritarian one, mine very much the majority, and not just of those of us "unserious" ones. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
