FRANCE: The French government can still win a tough referendum on the European Union constitution, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said yesterday, as rivals circled for his job and external commentators warned the French of the consequences of a No vote.
With a fresh poll showing the No camp enjoying a lead of 10 percentage points, Mr Raffarin said the undecided majority of voters held the key to the May 29th ballot.
"A majority of French people have still not said how they will vote, haven't made up their minds, so it's totally open," Mr Raffarin told RTL radio.
"Elections and major democratic debates are decided in the last few weeks and days, so, of course, there's hope for the Yes."
A poll yesterday for Le Figaro newspaper showed 55 per cent planned to vote against the treaty, which aims to simplify EU decision-making after the admission of 10 new members last May. It must have the backing of all EU member states to go into force.
After an angry exchange with interior minister Dominique de Villepin over his comments, Mr Raffarin sought to put an end to the row.
"There is no crisis. There is tension, and there's been a clearing of the air. Basically, we are in agreement," he told RTL radio.
"I checked yesterday that the relation of confidence I have with the president is such he would not use another" to speak his mind, he said. "I make that comment this morning on RTL with the agreement of the president."
His remarks suggested he had no plans to resign now. Mr de Villepin's weekend comments made it clear he wanted Mr Raffarin's job, fuelling speculation that Mr Chirac could make the prime minister a scapegoat for defeat in a ballot on which the president has staked much personal prestige.
Mr Raffarin's efforts to draw a line under the affair were not helped by Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy who, like Mr Villepin and Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, has ambitions to replace Mr Raffarin.
"I, too, say that one must take account of the concerns, the fears, the worries of the French people, that we have to relaunch our action," he told France Info radio.
Meanwhile, French and Dutch foreign ministers warned that there was no plan to salvage the proposed constitution if voters in the two countries rejected it. The Dutch will vote on it three days after the French.
"I want to make it clear. There will be no second chance," French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told a news conference after talks with his Dutch counterpart in The Hague, adding there would be no new treaty for some time if it is rejected.
Mr Barnier said the French and Dutch governments had a special responsibility to ensure a thorough debate on the treaty given that both countries were among the founding members of the bloc.
"There is no plan B," Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot said. "It's this treaty that people have to say Yes to."
Prospective European Central Bank executive board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi yesterday said that the prospect of a French No was upsetting financial markets and could make harder the ECB's job of controlling inflation.
Polish central banker Dariusz Filar said financial market expectations that Poland would join the euro could fade, while Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka said on Monday that rejection of the constitution would "completely change the way the EU negotiates with Turkey" as well as wreck Ukraine's EU hopes.
Margot Wallström, the deputy head of the European Commission, said the EU would not redraft its constitution for French voters if they rejected the treaty. German Interior Minister Otto Schily said he believed the ratification process in other member states should continue even if the French voted No.