Kohl Appeals to French Voters to Ratify European Union Treaty

In an unprecedented direct appeal to the citizens of his neighboring country, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl appeared on French national television Thursday night to urge French voters to ratify the Maastricht Treaty on European political and economic union in a critical referendum Sept. 20.

Appearing from Bonn by satellite connection, Kohl described the French referendum as a “moment of destiny” that affects the future of Franco-German friendship and European unity. He urged French voters to “seize the opportunity” and vote for ratification.

Kohl’s television intervention during a debate at the Sorbonne between French President Francois Mitterrand and opponents of the Maastricht Treaty underlined the importance of the French vote to the 12 nations of the European Community, whose leaders signed the treaty in the Dutch city of Maastricht last December.

A defeat by French voters would probably kill the treaty, which is a blueprint for a future federal-style Europe with a single European currency. The treaty suffered a setback when Danish voters narrowly turned it down in June. Ireland’s voters subsequently voted to approve it.

Ratification is pending before Britain’s Parliament, but a senior official in Prime Minister John Major’s office said this week that the bill will be withdrawn from consideration if France votes “no.”

Recent public opinion surveys show French voters evenly divided on ratification. Kohl’s appearance was expected to bolster treaty supporters, led by Mitterrand’s Socialist Party, who have recently launched a scare campaign warning that failure to ratify the treaty might cause powerful Germany to break away from its commitments to unified Western Europe.

“We need to protect Germany from its demons,” former Prime Minister Michel Rocard said, reflecting this view. Recent neo-Nazi anti-immigrant riots in eastern Germany have strengthened the German scare campaign.

Opponents of the treaty, represented at the Sorbonne debate by former Gaullist minister Philippe Seguin, accused Kohl of meddling in French internal affairs.

Aristocratic right-wing leader Philippe de Villiers accused Mitterrand, 75, of attempting a “face lift by appealing to foreign personalities.”

In his brief television appearance Kohl denied meddling in French affairs. “At a historic hour when our French friends vote and pronounce on a question that involves the future of Franco-German friendship,” Kohl said, “it’s not meddling if a friend of your country gives his advice.”

He compared his action to Mitterrand’s 1983 appearance before the German Bundestag to support Kohl in a debate over deployment of U.S.-made Pershing missiles in Germany.

Mitterrand, greeting the German chancellor by his first name, described the European Community as the means of “surmounting past antagonisms and hatreds” between France and Germany, opponents in three wars in the past 100 years. “We are not eternal, hereditary enemies,” he said.

Mitterrand said defeat of the treaty “would be a serious blow to French history and to the French.” But he refused to say if he would resign, as some opponents have demanded, if the referendum fails.

“I’m battling so the ‘yes’ will win,” he said. “I haven’t examined the consequences of a hypothetical victory for the ‘no’. . . . I will take the responsibilities that are incumbent on me.”

Mitterrand’s second seven-year term expires in 1995.