In 2005 the people of France and the Netherlands gave a stinging rebuke to the European Union by rejecting a new constitutional treaty. Seven years on, they are again causing alarm. To judge from the presidential race in France and the fall of the Dutch government this week, many are kicking against austerity. And a growing number support extremist parties of the left and right that reject the decades-old European project altogether. Tempting as it is to conflate worries about France and the Netherlands, much separates them. France is big and protectionist by instinct; the Netherlands is a small, open trader. The French have long played fast and loose with public finances; the Dutch see themselves as models of fiscal discipline. France has a powerful presidency; the Netherlands muddles through with a kaleidoscopic parliamentary system. In Paris supranational eu bodies are seen as a fetter; in The Hague the European Commission is hailed as the protector of small countries.
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