Jacques, himself, again, but with the new Constitution
EU Referendum has a link to the document, and detailed summaries.

Kathleen's posting on Chirac's doings to get the EU constitution he wants. Kathleen says, I do believe if the monarchy was still around, Jacques would throw a coup, usurp the King and take over for himself. In Jacques's case, Nicholas Sarkozy's throwing a coup (slowly and steadily, over the past several months). Early this year he openly challenged Chirac in his own party, the UMP. Just this week NS gathered UMP members of the National Assembly, fed them lunch, asked for their support for his presidency of the party to replace Chirac crony Juppé (who can't hold office for the next 10 years because he's been convicted by the courts for acting as Chirac's frontman from back in the days when JC was mayor of Paris), and bussed them back to the National Assembly. In his spare time between negotiations on price controls on consumer goods and possible privatization of the electrical utilities, Nick (the natives call him Sarko) has been doing some international networking during his Washington (visited Condoleezza and Colin) and London (Gordon Brown) trips last month.

The NYTimes tells us that, "Despite last-minute lobbying from Pope John Paul II and a last-ditch appeal from Poland, a reference to Europe's Christian traditions didn't make it into the text". Dora Amador, in an op-ed in El Nuevo Herald (in Spanish) looks at the EU's religious roots (my translation):

The European Union's flag is inspired on the book of the Apocalypse: "1 A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars". (Revelation, 12, 1). It was after meditating on this image that Arsene Heitz, a Catholic Belgian artist, was inspired for the design of the current EU flag, back in the 1950s.

Ms Amador also reminds us that the flag was officially adopted on December 8, 1955, feast of the Immaculate Conception, and that all the founding fathers of the EU were Catholic: Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, Alcide De Gasperi and Konrad Adenauer.

But back to Jacques, who Attacks Britain (Blair doesn't want higher corporate taxes and unions running amok), Eurosoc speculates that maybe Chirac doesn't want the constitutional treaty to succeed:

France is the EU, Chirac believes: The possibility of being removed from this prime position by such ungrateful and disrespectful pygmies horrifies him.

Perhaps he has concluded that he might be better off without Europe's dissidents. France is nostalgic for its leading role when the EU had only six members: Perhaps winding the clock back on European policy - as with national economic policy - is the only option left for Chirac.

Or maybe he'll come back and taunt them a second time?