Twenty years after the no in the European referendum, what has become of the « Polish plumber »? – release
Long before « the Brussels diktat » or « Brexit means Brexit », on May 29, 2005, it was twenty years ago, the French rejected the European Constitutional Treaty (TCE) which was submitted to them by referendum. That day, 54.7 % of the voters had chosen the « no », when many still believed in « yes ». An image that had imposed itself in the campaign, popularized by Philippe de Villiers and other sovereignists and nationalists, has largely contributed to this surprise victory of the no: That of the « Polish plumber », this migratory worker who would go almost wages to steal the bread of the good French. Triumphant in France, the metaphor would have a growing success in other countries, especially in the United Kingdom.
If the argument was simplistic, even misleading, its success was due to its capacity to concentrate the debate on the fund of the European project, smashing in passing the invulnerability of the two major parties. The left in particular will go beyond for years : Was the proposed treaty the abolition of Ranci nationalism of the old continent, or on the contrary the sacralization of unbridled liberalism of its future?
Since then, many Polish plumbers have returned to their country, now a good student of the European economy, and the fracture on the left has changed its place. Our investigation is based on this key moment in French political history, revisiting in passing the violent debates which it aroused at the very heart of the editorial staff of Release. If the French left has today abandoned rhetoric against Brussels, it is essentially thanks to a text of 2018 guaranteeing detached workers a remuneration equal to that of their colleagues in France, and the same collective agreement. But constants are still there, such as the Bulgarian road or the animated debates at Libe.
