The duel in the French referendum on the European Union constitution between the "oui-ists" and the "non-ists" ended Sunday night with a resounding 55 percent "no" vote.

What is not clear is whether the outcome was due to straight French objections to the substance of the constitution, general unease about France's being drawn more closely to the bosom of Europe or just plain exasperation with the government of President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin for its domestic policies.

The leaders' approval ratings had reached startling lows by the time of the referendum, and yesterday Mr. Chirac told Mr. Raffarin to take the fall. He resigned and the president replaced him with Dominique de Villepin, current interior minister and former foreign minister. De Villepin is of blessed memory to the Bush administration from the run-up to the Iraq war which he, a career diplomat, opposed vigorously on behalf of his government.

The worst of the situation -- to those who favor a continuing smooth expansion of the EU, adding states and making governance more efficient -- is that the Netherlands, which will hold its own referendum on the constitution today, is also expected to reject it with a resounding "no." The Netherlands, like France, is an old core member of the EU.

The EU constitution cannot take effect without all 25 members having approved it, so the French "no" -- likely to be followed by a Dutch "no" -- stalls it for now. The rejection does not change the present operation of the EU. It is unlikely, however, that the current French government will be able to go back to the electoral well in the foreseeable future. Getting the constitution to its present state was a long, laborious process; modifying it enough to permit the Chirac government to take it back to the French electorate would be a nearly impossible short-term task.

This setback to making the EU more coherent and efficient as a body does not make a major difference to the United States at this point. The 25-nation union is already a hefty player on the world stage, standing alongside China as a credible rival to the United States for superpower status.

What it does mean is that in the short run, the EU is going to be somewhat disrupted internally as it tries to decide where to go next in the economic and political unification of Europe.

The French government has also been rocked back on its heels by the big "no." If Mr. Chirac did not have such a large ego, he might have followed the path of Charles de Gaulle, who in 1969 resigned as president when the French voted against a referendum he supported. Jacques Chirac, instead, kicked Jean-Pierre Raffarin off the sled.