PARIS, Aug. 23 (UPI) -- French opposition to the European constitution was expressed on the Internet as well as in a May 29 referendum.
A university study found 67 percent of French said they opposed the EU charter, when asked to expressed their opinions on some 295 Web sites dedicated to the question.
France became the first European country to reject the constitution. Dutch voters similarly voted 'no' to the charter a few days after the French vote, throwing the European Union into a crisis.
According to the study by researchers at the University of Technology of Compiegne, some 79 percent of anti-constitution Web sites directed surfers to other anti-charter sites. Only 64 percent of sites supporting the constitution did the same.
"The Web served as a political tribunal for those who considered themselves distanced from television formats or big-time media, transforming the Web into a sort of negative medium," that apparently helped reinforce the negative vote, wrote Franck Ghitalla and Guilhem Fouetillou, two of the study's authors.
