FRANCE: GUI' to the EEC

The wording of the "Referendum on Europe" submitted to French voters was as flat as an overcooked souffle: "Do you approve within the new perspectives opening in Europe the proposed law submitted to the French people by the President of the Republic, authorizing the ratification of the treaty relative to the entry of Great Britain, Denmark, Ireland and Norway into the European community?"

Few Frenchmen, though, missed the implications of the first national referendum conducted since Georges Pompidou succeeded Charles de Gaulle as President of the Fifth Republic. In view of France's...