Re: But I have no idea whether he proceeded with the vote hoping to end his career with a YES, or proceeded now expecting a NO to gain better position for France.
A mystery.
Well, as far as I'm concerned, there's no mystery: a "NO" is definitely in France's best interest. In a nutshell, I'd say that the relationship European countries --especially those bordering the Mediterranean-- must build with the Arab/Muslim world is not the same as that between the latter and the US.... France has understood that and has the will to enforce it. Other European countries have not or have yet to grasp that truth... Other EU countries like the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, the UK,... didn't realize --or worse, downplayed-- the fact that it's all the easier for the US to demonize and scapegoat "ugly Arabs" when only 2.5 million Arab-Americans live in the US... Suppose one moment that, instead of Islamic terrorism, Hispanic terrorism were the world's bane #1. How would the US, the self-proclaimed Nemesis of terrorists, react? There're currently 20 million Latinos roaming the US --20 million potential domestic terrorists?!? I don't think US authorities would be so eager to run after them --they'd know better.
Yet, when it comes to Europe and the so-called Green Peril, European authorities slavishly, shamelessly, jumped on the US bandwagon on its way to fight "ugly Arabs" --oblivious of the threat of civil war such a course of action poses to their own countries.... Of course, as I once put it several years ago, such Israelization of both Europe and America perfectly suits the Zionist lobby: if all Arab/Muslim immigrants in the US and Europe can be branded Palestinian terrorists then it's gonna be all the easier for Israeli hawks to win over Europeans and Americans to their cause....
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