..........When the voting centers have closed (at 2200 in the big cities...), a "longing for the Bastille" will spread among the population from 2230 onwards, if the "no" prevails.......... (quoted from www.appeldes200.net)

Supposedly, James Tobin would have been of the opinion that a policy for financial stability should not be confused with a change of the constitution.

Neither do presidents Chirac and Lula see a constitutional issue in the CTT. According to them, the primary aim of the CTT is to provide a steady flow of income for the financing of the Millennium Development Goals of the UN. For them, it is a purely technical measure which, nevertheless, could raise a considerable sum of money for aid.

Few European supporters of the CTT (with the exception of legal experts like Lieven Denys) seem to have observed that the implementation of the CTT could touch upon the basic laws of the state. Thanks to the French, however, this question is part of the current political debate. Attac France , which plays an important role in the great civic movement for the "no" in the referendum 28 may, has pointed at the incompatibility of the proposed neoliberal European Constitution (notably its Article III:156) with the introduction of taxes on international capital movements. Therefore, it is either the European Constitution or international taxes, said Attac France at Porto Alegre in January 2005 (statement here). At the same time Attac urged the French President to draw the logical conclusion from his own speeches abroad and to reject the current European constitution proposal. Chirac, however, never did that.

In the USA politicians routinely reject the CTT because they think that any international tax must be in conflict with their own constitution. "Global taxes are inherently undemocratic", said the US Secretary of Agriculture, Ms Veneman, at the Summit Conference on Hunger in New York 20 September 2004. No doubt she echoed the Eighteenth-Century slogan of the Americans against their British rulers: No taxation without representation.

The point is that everybody should take the "no taxation without representation"-slogan seriously. It is an excellent argument. Attac, the CTT campaigners and the movement for tax justice will advance only if we can present a solution to the problem of democracy and representation that arises with global taxation. For this reason, too, we must be prepared to discuss constitutional issues. The Draft Treaty on Global Currency Transactions Tax is a contribution to that discussion.

The original historical context of the slogan no taxation without representation was that of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. It is not difficult to see a continuity from the French Revolution right up to the French referendum on the EU Constitution 29 May. Firstly, the institution of the referendum itself belongs in the revolutionary context. The referendum, history books tell us, came to France with the constitution of 1793 which had been sketched by Condorcet. Secondly, the constellation of forces is not so different from that in the year 1789: a victory of the "yes" on 29 May 2005 would be an affirmation of the Old Regime, namely, the tyranny of the financial markets and the decadent plutocracy, which has replaced the old aristocracy: the Enrons, the Citicorps, the Worldcoms of America, the Yukoses of Russia, the Microsofts of the Information Society, the Clearstreams of Luxemburg and the Royal Dutch Shell, the company Mr Bolkestein used to work for before he became the taxation Commissioner of EU and an adviser to Group Menatep of Gibraltar; the French civic movement for the "no", on the other hand is the embryo of a new historical bloc of progress and democracy. As ever, the situation is laden with contradictions. It is a big problem that one part of the French who reject the proposed European constitutional teaty are nationalists and demogogues on the far right. The leftist and rightist elements among the "no"-voters have one trait in common: disillusionment with the present social and political system and its leaders.

For decades now it has looked like the peoples of Europe do not even dare to think revolution. Except, perhaps in France!

The Eighteenth-Century French revolution was a process whereby the people of France liberated and conquered their own country, la patrie. I hope the French say "no" 29 May because that could be the beginning of the liberation of Europe from the tyranny of financial capital. However, after the victory of "no", the left will have to come forth with a liberating constitution, as opposed to the liberal one, a constitution which opens the road towards global democracy.

Europe-wide, and thus international taxation, should be one of the central innovations of the next constitution. It should legitimize and encourage the implementation of global taxes such as the CTT.

Ignacio Ramonet of "Le monde diplomatique" hit the right key in December 1997 when he wrote about using the Tobin Tax to "Disarm the Financial Markets" in the article which sparked off the Attac movement. The taxation of the global trade with money remains high on the revolutionary agenda, and, because of the pathological growth of the financial markets during the last two-three decades, it is already long overdue. The elephantiasis of the present free flow of capital bears some resemblance with the nuclear arms race of the Cold War. It must be cured, or it will lead to systemic collapse and catastrophe. The world financial system must be rebuilt and its new architecture must become a centerpiece of the constitution.