When the French Vote on European Unity--It’s All About Germany : Maastricht: Europe had become a dull continent. But with the setbacks to unification, not to mention fighting in the east, this is no longer true.

NEW ORLEANS — Thomas Carlyle once described the form of government in France as “rule by a citizen-king, frequently shot at, but not shot.” Every now and then, however, the French do kill a king, and Francois Mitterrand, the wiliest politician in Europe and the most important figure in French history since Charles de Gaulle, has never been closer to the political guillotine.

Mitterrand’s fate may be settled on Sept. 20, when the French vote oui or non on the Maastricht agreement, the plan for European political and monetary union that Mitterrand hopes will be his legacy to the nation. Non to Maastricht will almost certainly mean non to Mitterrand as well--with his popularity ratings already perilously low, and his Socialist Party facing almost certain defeat in the coming elections, Mitterrand will find it increasingly difficult to cling to the throne. Even victory may not help; France is more restless than at any time since 1968, when rioting students and striking workers almost caused a new French Revolution.

It isn’t all Mitterrand’s fault. The European Community used to be a non-controversial subject in France. As recently as last spring, polls showed 60% to 70% of the French in favor of Maastricht. Now Maastricht, and France’s whole European policy, are hot potatoes. The Revolution of 1989 has shaken European politics to the foundations, and the French are increasingly concerned that their political Establishment, and especially their citizen-king, do not know what to do in the new and dangerous European situation. They may well be right.

Meanwhile, Maastricht fever is gripping Europe’s once calm money markets. Investors and speculators pour over French poll results, trying to guess which way voters will turn. Every sign that the treaty will fail sends the French franc and the German mark up, and drives another nail in the coffins of the lira, dollar and pound. Stock markets--including Wall Street--swoon or soar depending on the polls. Sweden had to raise its short-term interest rates to the unbelievable level of 75% as rumors spread about plans to devalue its currency.

In France, and every European country, the usual voices of the Great and the Good are united in warning that rejection of Maastricht would be a disaster of “historic proportions.”

Not quite. The safe and boring old Europe that produced Maastricht is dead, and while a non vote might complicate the process of adjusting European policy to new realities, a oui vote can’t bring back the quietly prosperous Europe we used to know.

The boring old Europe came out of World War II. As the Europeans dug themselves out of the rubble, they realized that Europe’s wars and divisions had not only brought misery and death to millions of Europeans; they had also ended Europe’s independence. The old Great Powers of Europe were weak and exhausted; two brash new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, controlled Europe’s destiny.

Much as the French and Germans hated each other, they hated Europe’s poverty and dependence more. A Franco-German partnership began to put the framework of European unity together. They wanted Europe to be a superpower, a political and economic force able to stand up to the United States, the Soviets and Japan.

The French had another card up their sleeve. They believed Germany, divided by the Cold War and crippled by its Nazi past, could never challenge France as the chairman of the board in the European Union. Germany would be economic leader--it would pay most of the bills. France would be the political leader, and harness German strength to a French agenda.

This vision has been at the center of French policy since the time of De Gaulle, but it no longer corresponds with reality. United Germany has too many problems of its own to follow France’s lead--and Germany is so powerful economically that France can’t control it. Before the ink had dried on Germany’s unification documents, it began to impose new economic and political policies on the rest of Europe. Rather than tax Germans to pay for unification, Chancellor Helmut Kohl chose a Reagan-like program of massive deficits supported by high interest rates; this attracted capital from the rest of the world and forced Germany’s neighbors to raise interest rates. In effect, Germany had learned to tax France to help pay the costs of German expansion.

Germany, now paying $100 billion a year in transition assistance to the former East Germany and billions more to its neighbors farther east, is cutting back on its commitments to the West. The biggest shock to France: Germany’s decision to cut funding for an ambitious European program to build an advanced military aircraft. This hurt: France is desperate to build a high-tech industrial sector.

In politics, too, Germany imposed its own will on Europe. Most experts and diplomats warned that diplomatic recognition of breakaway Yugoslav republics would lead to a Bosnian war, but the Croatian and Slovene cause was politically popular in Germany. Germany simply announced to its EC partners that it would recognize the new republics whatever the others did; Britain and France had no choice but to follow along.

These developments caught Mitterrand, and the whole French political Establishment flat-footed. France tried, ineffectually, to revive its anti-German coalition with Russia, as Mitterrand first sought to work out an anti-unification policy with Mikhail S. Gorbachev and then flirted with the conservative nationalists who staged the short-lived Soviet coup of August, 1991. None of these initiatives brought Mitterrand anything but humiliation and, in desperation, France decided to step on the gas of European integration. It couldn’t stop the German bandwagon, so it would jump on and pretend it had never had anything but the warmest regards for its newly powerful neighbor.

This hasn’t fooled the Germans, and it has awakened new doubts about Europe in French public opinion. A bizarre coalition that includes Communists, the far-right followers of the anti-immigrant campaigner Jean Marie Le Pen, dissident conservatives and even a handful of disgruntled socialists is waging a surprisingly effective anti-Maastricht campaign.

Europe has the bloodiest history and the messiest politics of any continent on Earth. The bone-weary Europeans took a long break after World War II, but intermission is over. As the French vote, Germans riot, Yugoslavs slaughter and Russians sulk, the curtain is rising on the next act of the most tragic, and most riveting drama in the story of mankind. Sadly, the United States will probably again be stuck playing the lead.