EU DENIES FREE AIR TICKET BRIBES FOR YES VOTE IN FRENCH POLL

The European Commission denied yesterday it was bribing French voters to vote Yes in next month's referendum on the draft constitution.

That was despite its unveiling a scheme to offer free and subsidised transatlantic air tickets to residents of Martinique and France's other overseas territories and departments.

Under France's colonial traditions, Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana and Tahiti are legally treated as parts of the mainland and are known in French as "Dom-Toms". That grants residents of those palm-fringed corners of the world a perfect right to vote in the French constitutional poll on May 29.

In the 1992 French referendum on the Maastricht treaty, the result, which was decided by a margin of less than one per cent, was swung in favour of the Yes camp at the last moment, when France announced the fortuitous arrival of huge numbers of Yes votes from the Dom-Toms.

The schemes, which uses French government money, will offer students and those on low incomes a subsidy worth €250 (£180) for a return flight, once a year, between Fort-de-France in the Caribbean and France. A second scheme offers free air tickets, under certain conditions, for students living in the Dom-Toms but studying or training in France or another EU country.

Normally the commission frowns on such national subsidies, especially to airlines, but said it was different as the aid would be granted whatever airline was used, making it a pan-European offer. Oddly, airline schedules indicate that flights from Fort-de-France to Paris are offered by only three airlines, all of them French: Air France, Air Caraibes and Air Corse.

A commission spokesman "categorically denied" the decision was linked to polls showing a steady majority for the No camp in France. But Chris Heaton-Harris, a Tory MEP, said: "It is outrageous. The commission clearly thinks 250 euros a year will do the trick again."

Circulez, il n'y a rien à voir.

(Hat tip: Valerie)

Your knowledge of the DOM-TOMs seems to be lacking. The four French overseas departments are Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guyana and Reunion (in the Indian Ocean). French Polynesia (which includes Tahiti), New Caledonia (south pacific), Wallis and Futina Islands (south pacific), Mayotte (Indian ocean) and St. Pierre and Miquelon (north america) are Overseas Territories. Only the overseas departments are treated like part of the French mainland. The rest have a status similar to Puerto Rico. And to call the position of the overseas departments colonial is absurd, unless you wish to argue that Hawaii and Alaska are colonies.

The DOM's have the same status to France that Hawaii and Alaska have to our nation, there is nothing more to be said. As for the overseas territories, I dislike the anti-nationalist sentiment cultivated by Paris in TOM's such New Caledonia and French Polynesia, but then again I also dislike the way the US treated Puerto Rico and its pacific territories in its history, so I am not in any position to hurl stones from glass houses

M. Justin,

You need take your complaints on Dom-Toms to the Telegraph, the author of the article. Recklessly we quoted the article without elaboration thinking our understanding of Dom-Toms, coincident with the Telegraph's characterization, not lacking.

Nowhere in our reading did the Telegraph call the Dom-Toms' "position" colonial, what it said was, "under France's colonial traditions...", which -- you might've known this were your understanding of French colonialism not, well, lacking -- treated territories as départements, scil., extensions of the mainland, though the aboriginals were left out of the fun of government.

Then again, were you a careful reader, you might have noticed that the Telegraph refers to "Dom-Toms", much as the French do, to talk about both départements d'outre-mer and territoires d'outre-mer: "The status of TOM differs from that of DOM, but because of some common peculiarities, DOMs, TOMs and other oversea possessions under other statuses are often referred to as DOM/TOM."

Let us know how you make out correcting the Telegraph. If you prevail -- catastrophe ! -- then the Maastricht treaty must be voted again.

The point of our post, which escaped your scholarly skim completely, is that money is being spent questionably to skew the result of a failing political initiative.

How sad to learn your morally equivalent dislikes apparently prevent you from casting stones at particular wrongs -- what a strange morally inert world that must be.

Regards,
DGB

Justin wrote: The rest have a status similar to Puerto Rico.

Funny, I don't recall the US threatening Puerto Rico for having the temerity to seek independence as France has recently done in its territory of Tahiti...that, after decades of French nuclear bomb testing in polynesian waters. Puerto Ricans are free to vote their way out of the US umbrella at any time, but that would mean giving up their US paychecks, welfare payments and easy entry/exit into the US..