THE emphatic “no” from France may now set off a clash between the Right and the Left of Europe. Or at least, if that seems too stark a prospect, it may deepen the divisions between old and new Europe, Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous distinction that has kept its usefulness even if its author, in the interests of diplomacy, now forswears it.

One reaction from the “yes” camp in France to Sunday’s result has been to call for the European Union to move more to the left: to profess, unambiguously, its support for social services, labour rights and welfare. We might call this a shocked reflex more than a considered response.

It is understandable that the “yes” campaign in France should feel that if only it had had a few more tools to persuade voters that Europe was not heading in the direction of “Anglo-American” capitalism, it could have won the day. Yet that denies the change that has already taken place in the nature of the European Union, with the expansion to 25 members last year, and the inclusion of much of Central and Eastern Europe.

It also denies the force that the superior performance of the British economy has given Britain in EU negotiations in the past few years, even if the sharply worsening fiscal position now cramps Gordon Brown’s room for manoeuvre.

To think that a few more clauses of social reassurance could be stapled on to a constitution to enable it to pass would be to underestimate the weight of both those factors. Many of the new members are sceptical of the “old Europe” social model; and many countries that would be instinctively sympathetic to France are uncomfortably aware that, even if EU growth sharply improves, the old welfare systems may not be affordable.

There is no question that enlargement triggered much of the unease among those who voted “no” in France. It may have been precise fears of losing jobs to the newcomers. It may, more vaguely, have been the sense that the Union has become bigger than they expected. It may have been a reaction to the prospect of Turkey joining (perhaps not helped by Poland’s noisy advocacy of Ukraine).

Well, those who are fearful were right, in their terms. Unless they feel like accepting the bracing reassurance that internal competition should in the end boost European growth, they are right to see some threat to the old practices.

On the whole, the newcomers have weighed in on the side of freer markets and less regulation. They are passionate about the proposal to open up the market in services, and annoyed that it has been put on hold, before the French referendum, because of French distaste.

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, the British civil servant who was one of the authors of the constitution, argues that competition is their prime concern. “I agree, if we turn up with big cheques the East Europeans will take them,” he told The Times before the French vote. “But for them, the be-all and end-all is a genuine single market. If other countries want to price themselves out of that market, so be it, they would say.”

He added that “they lived in Comecon [the Soviet-led economic bloc]. They know that the centralised model, distributing funds slowly, does not work.”

Of course, there are exceptions to their enthusiasm for liberalisation. One may prove to be agriculture. It is entirely possible that their self-interest may be an obstacle to reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.

The response in France of those who want to salvage the constitution may well be to call for a reaffirmation of the “old” values. But that is to ignore the realities: that Europe already includes many new members who do not agree, and that without stronger economic growth this vision sounds like self-delusion, not an actual choice.

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