France and the European constitutional treaty

Today France votes in a referendum to accept or not the European constitutional treaty. It's a "rendezvous" that the French have with history as they've had many in their long history. The French people have always had a decisive influence in the rest of the world, especially Europe.

Today the history of Europe will change. Whatever the result of the referendum.

If the French say "NO" to the treaty, Europe (read Brussels) will have to stop and think. Whether they have or not the much discussed "plan B" they will have to put it in practice otherwise the European construction will stop in its rails.
It does not matter what the Dutch will say on Wednesday or the British in a few months, what matters is that Brussels cannot push the treaty (as it is now) forward without the consent of a major driver of European integration.
This will no doubt lead to a lot of quarreling in the many European political families, especially those that are divided pretty much 50/50 on the issue of the importance of this treaty. But this quarreling is a healthy sign of true democracy being built into Europe. The arguments that the "YES" camp have been using (like "a NO would mean that France is left out of Europe" or "a NO vote would be irresponsible" or even better "those who vote NO do not want a united Europe") are just a proof of the lack of imagination of those politicians that were unprepared for a true discussion about the future of Europe in the country that started the democratic process in Europe more than 200 years ago!

Sure, there is a measure of "anti-Chirac" in the "NO" vote (independently of whether it wins or not), but that is also healthy or is that not part of democracy? However, let's not forget that Chirac was completely behind this constitutional treaty in its present form. Certainly a "NO" vote has to take that into account.

In the end, and independently of the results of today's referendum what matters is that the French have shown that they can still be relied upon to critically analyze what comes from Brussels, even if their own government is one of it's major supporters, and that is a proof of democratic maturity that leaves this writer confident of Europe's future.