French President Nicholas Sarkozy was confronted with hundreds of protesters on Monday as he arrived in Dublin for a visit in an attempt to save the Lisbon Treaty rejected by Irish referendum last month.
According to the reports by the Sky News, protesters gathered outside the government building in Dublin, holding signs and boards, chanting "No means no" as Sarkozy arrived for talks with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen.
Last week, Sarkozy, who holds the EU rotating presidency, said that Ireland should vote again on the EU reform treaty.
Demonstrator Conor Payne said he was "outraged" by Sarkozy's reaction to the Irish vote.
"Sarkozy has made his complete contempt of the Irish people perfectly clear," said the 20-year-old student. "We're here to demand our result be respected."
Ireland is the only EU member constitutionally required to subject treaties to a referendum, and an EU treaty cannot become law unless every member ratifies it, said the report.
According to the report, Patricia McKenna, a former European Parliament member who led an anti-treaty pressure group called People's Movement, said, "One of the core underlying reasons for voting 'no' was the fact that people sense a lack of democratic accountability and control of power slipping away."
Sarkozy has invited her and more than a dozen other pressure group leaders to a closed-doors discussion inside the French embassy in Dublin.
However, McKenna said she fears Sarkozy does not respect anti-treaty voices and instead wants just to say "that he met with all sides of Irish opinion."
"I accepted the invitation out of respect for the people of France, who also voted 'no' to virtually the same proposals," she said, referring to the 2005 referendum rejection on the EU constitution by France.
Source:Xinhua
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