East Midlands Euro MP regrets outcome of French constitutional vote

10.21.30am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 30th May 2005

Bill Newton Dunn (Liberal Democrat MEP, East Midlands) commented regretfully on the result of the referendum in France:

"I respect the majority opinion of French voters. But I regret their decision to vote No to the draft EU Constitutional treaty. In my opinion, the prevailing mood in France, as also in Britain, is fear of the future. Our world is changing very fast - jobs are flowing out of Europe to China and India. We have had too few children so we need immigrants to keep our societies going.

Either France and all of Europe including Britain can face the dangers and opportunities of the future and adapt to deal with them. Or we can turn our backs on the future and hope that by voting No we can resist change. King Canute discovered that you cannot stop the tide coming in. Nor can Europeans afford to ignore the challenges ahead."