EU / France: Europe's new constitution is to face its toughest electoral test to date on May 29th, when France will vote in a referendum that promises to be fought closely reports Denis Staunton, European Correspondent
President Jacques Chirac announced the date yesterday, scheduling the vote earlier than expected in an attempt to improve the chance of a Yes vote.
Popular support for the constitution in France has been falling, although opinion polls continue to show a greater number in favour than against. A poll last month showed that almost half of French voters had yet to make up their minds, with only 25 per cent certain to vote Yes.
The constitution's backers fear that voters could use the referendum to punish France's increasingly unpopular conservative government. Some analysts suggest that popular opposition to the EU's decision to start membership talks with Turkey could boost the No vote.
France's biggest political parties are backing the constitution, although a significant minority of Socialists complain that it will institutionalise in the EU a bias towards a free market ideology.
Spain became the first country to back the constitution in a referendum last month, and the Netherlands will vote on it just three days after the French poll. Ireland is expected to hold a referendum in the second half of this year.
A French No vote could doom the constitution, pushing the EU into a new crisis over its future. Facilitating a referendum victory in France will be a major political priority for the EU institutions during the next three months.
Internal Markets commissioner Charlie McCreevy may have improved the constitution's prospects this week with his announcement that he is willing to make major amendments to the services directive, which is deeply unpopular in France.
The directive aims to remove obstacles to service-providers who want to operate across borders in the EU, creating a single market in services similar to the EU's internal market for goods.
Critics say it could lead to a "race to the bottom" in terms of service quality and workers' pay and conditions and force countries to privatise large parts of their health services.
Mr McCreevy said he was willing to exempt health and other public services from the directive and to make changes which would eliminate the possibility of "social dumping" by protecting workers' rights.
The French referendum campaign starts amid growing public unrest over the government's economic policies, with a national strike planned for next week. Mr Chirac and prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin have recently seen their popularity fall sharply.
In a session at Versailles this week, the country's two houses of parliament voted to amend the French constitution to allow the referendum to go ahead. Despite the support of the political establishment for the constitution, the referendum's outcome remains impossible to predict.
The last time France held a referendum, on the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, it was passed by a margin of just 2 per cent.
