So now what?

After the resounding 'NO' vote from French voters on the EU constitution, President Chirac has appointed Dominique de Villepin as the new Prime Minister and Nicolas Sarkozy as number 2 (Interior). So we could call this game of musical chairs the change in continuity and basically not much will happen in France until the next presidential election in 2007.

How is the vote perceived by the foreign (European or not) students here? Some comments during discussions I had: "What's wrong with France?", "What's going to happen, is it the end of Europe?", "Villepin, it's the guy from the UN speech?", "Aren't you ashamed of being French? (but this one was to provoke me)"... It's fair to say that the result has generated indifference or incomprehension among the foreign student community. France was already not viewed as very business friendly (and that's an euphemism) but now, it's perceived by some as an ego-centric country, withdrawn into oneself and with a bleak future.

So what can the French do to change this perception? Not much I guess because the facts are here: Le Pen at the second round of the last elections, the 'NO' vote, 10% unemployment, 35 hours work week... Those points of course can be argued (ie: the 'NO' was not against Europe but more against the current government) but people have little time and just remember the big picture and honestly, it's not pretty. May be 2007 and a new president will change the foreign opinion on France but that remains to be seen and I'm not optimistic.