We may like to diss the French...

… but their voting percentages put ours to shame (although not readers of blogs, I assume, who probably vote in even higher percentages).

UPDATE: According to the WSJ, the French have overwhelmingly rejected the proposed European Union constitution. It is hard to imagine how Chirac will recover from this.

PARIS — The French decisively rejected the European Union’s proposed new constitution, plunging the bloc into political paralysis and putting at least a temporary break on five decades of movement toward an ever-stronger pan-European government.

President Jacques Chirac said in a televised address late Sunday that he would decide later this week whether to shuffle his cabinet in response to the vote, which amounted to a bitter personal defeat for the French leader. A staunch supporter of the constitution, he conceded that his countrymen had spurned the charter, after partial official results indicated that the “no” vote was carrying the day by a margin of 57% to 43%.

“It is your decision, it is your sovereign decision, and I take note of it,” he said.

Please, do.