As expected, French voters rejected the European Constitution. The margin, 55% to 45%, was even larger than expected. The vote pitted the centrist UMP ruling party of Jacques Chirac (“oui”) against a coalition (“non”) of just about everyone else: socialists, conservative nationalists, and classical liberals. The ruling party is so shocked, they’re even talking some sense. Party leader Nicolas Sarkozy (his family is originally Hungarian), has viewed the vote as calling France to move toward a more free-market economy:

The leader of France's ruling UMP conservatives called on Sunday for major changes in France's economic and social policy after initial results showed voters overwhelmingly rejected the EU constitution.

Sarkozy has said he wants to reform France's social model, revered by the left-wing and many conservative voters. He says it has lumbered France with chronically high unemployment.

Sarkozy has been described as an “admirer of the Thatcher-Blair revolution in Britain”. (Aside: Thatcher revolution, okay, but “Thatcher-Blair”?! What did Tony do, except not reverse what Maggie had accomplished?)

The vote showed that France has a split between rouge-etats (Paris) and bleu-etats (the rest of the country). While the rest of the country rejected the constitution,

Parisians voted 66.5 percent 'oui' and 33.5 percent 'non.'