FRANCE: The Yes campaign is making headway in its battle to convince French voters to approve the EU constitution in a ballot next month as the government's campaign hits its stride, France's Europe minister said.
Claudie Haignère said yesterday a No vote would damage the European Union and hurt France's status as a motor for closer integration in the 25-nation bloc, but said its rejection would not plunge the union into legal chaos.
For it to go into effect, all 25 EU states must approve the constitution which aims to streamline decision-making within the expanded union.
Pent-up public anger over the conservative government's record on jobs and economic reforms has translated into a solid lead for the No camp.
And with no national polls until 2007, the referendum has acted as a lightning rod for discontent.
"You could feel that what was being expressed were concerns, dissatisfaction, or unhappiness with the current situation. The treaty and European institutions were being made scapegoats," said Ms Haignère.
"But I think we're rather over that period . . . Now, the French people are realising what's at stake in Europe in the referendum of May 29th.
"They've started getting into the text of the treaty and we are in a phase where dialogue is a lot more constructive than a few weeks ago," said the soft-spoken Ms Haignère, who was the first French astronaut aboard the International Space Station in 2001.
A survey by pollsters Ifop released yesterday showed opposition to the charter at 52 per cent of respondents who had decided how to vote - a drop from 56 per cent in Ifop's last poll on April 18th, and unchanged from an Ipsos poll on Monday.
President Jacques Chirac is optimistic about the referendum, a source in his entourage said: "He feels the No has stopped rising and will start to fall."
Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said a French No vote would be a big setback for the union and for France.
"There is no plan B" in place should the French reject the treaty, Mr Juncker told France's Le Monde newspaper.
France could be the only EU member state to reject the charter, he said, adding: "Europe would then have a problem and France a bigger problem still."
It was naive to think the constitution could be immediately renegotiated, Mr Juncker said.
Earlier, former EU Commission president Jacques Delors told BBC radio: "I don't believe that a French No would stop the process of ratification of the treaty."
Asked if that meant there could be a second referendum in France, he replied: "Maybe".
Ms Haignère said the EU could work if the charter was rejected.
"There probably won't be any legal chaos because we have treaties which allow us to function nevertheless, even if we know what their deficiencies are in terms of an expanded European Union," she said.
But rejecting the text would "disrupt European construction, as well as confidence in France", Ms Haignère said amid the gilded splendour of the foreign ministry's salon d'horloge.
It was there on May 9th, 1950, that French foreign minister Robert Schuman launched the idea of continental co-operation that was to evolve into the European Union.
Ms Haignère said Europe needed the new constitution to keep pace with an ever-changing world, pointing to the ongoing dispute over soaring Chinese textiles exports as an argument in favour of the charter.
"The possibility of having a European Union better represented, strong, better structured in terms of decision-making, that's a plus in the competitive environment that is the international market," she said.