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"Are they winning?," The Economist, 23 March 2005, http://economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3798465.

The thrust of the article is the sudden "no" sentiment in France to the referendum on the European Constitution, but the economic news is even more depressing

Whether they represent a new trend or not, the new polls show that a French no is now a real possibility. How to explain such a surge of Euro-hostility? Partly, no doubt, it is a protest against an unpopular government, led by Jean-Pierre Raffarin, the prime minister, which seems to have lost its way at a time when voters are most anxious about jobs and pay. Unemployment is over 10%. Growth is still sluggish. Rents are rising. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets. Yet the government lacks any serious plan to revive the economy or increase jobs. Moreover, a whiff of sleaze hangs in the air, after the resignation of Hervé Gaymard as finance minister over a housing scandal, not to mention the opening this week of a corruption trial that fingers colleagues of Mr Chirac when he was mayor of Paris.

After all of Chirac's discussion of a powerful Europe to counter-balance the weight of the U.S., what an interesting twist of irony it would be if France were the country that undermined his wish.