‘May I remind you that the Pope is German! We don’t care! He’s joking, he’s joking!’ On 27 April 2005, the day after the Franco-German Council of Ministers in Paris, French cartoonist Plantu takes an ironic view of the support offered by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (centre) to President Jacques Chirac (on the right) to try to convince French voters to vote in favour of the European Constitutional Treaty. Despite this German support, the French referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, held on 29 May 2005, returns a ‘no’ vote.