France: On the last day of the French campaign for the European constitutional treaty referendum, the No vote is eight points ahead in opinion polls, at 54 per cent to 46 per cent for the Yes vote.
Sources close to the government say that if the vote goes that way, prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin could resign as early as Sunday night, soon after the last polling stations close and initial results are announced at 10pm.
The Élysée is anxious to prevent images of leftists celebrating on the Place de la Bastille from dominating television coverage of referendum results. By sacking Mr Raffarin quickly, President Jacques Chirac would hope to prevent calls for his own resignation from gaining momentum.
German Green MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit yesterday asked Mr Chirac to resign now. "He has an incredible chance to show that the constitutional treaty is important by saying, 'I resign because I don't want people to vote for or against me'. It would decouple Europe from the rage of the French," Mr Cohn-Bendit said.
National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has said Mr Chirac should resign if the No vote wins.
Serge July, editor-in-chief of the left-wing newspaper Libération, said there was "only one solution" to save the Yes vote: for Mr Chirac to promise to dissolve the National Assembly, calling an early election in September.
But in his "solemn address" on major television and radio stations to the French people last night, a form of communication he reserves for the most serious occasions, like the start of the Iraq war, Mr Chirac made a final appeal to voters to approve the constitution, saying a rejection would be seen as a "No" to Europe and would weaken France. "Europeans would perceive a rejection of the treaty as a 'No' to Europe," Mr Chirac said.
He said there was no question of renegotiating the charter if it was rejected and urged voters not to regard it as a plebiscite on the performance of his unpopular government.
The poll showing that 54 per cent will vote No was published yesterday by Le Monde. The number of undecided voters has fallen to 17 per cent.
"The No might go down a little, or it might go up," predicted Brice Teinturier of the TNS-Sofres polling institute which carried out the study for Le Monde. "A Yes victory would be a surprise. It cannot be excluded, but it seems unlikely."
The same poll showed that arguments used until now by Mr Chirac - the influence of France within Europe and the necessity of a strong Europe vis-à-vis the US and China - do not affect French voters. Fifty-four per cent of those polled said French influence would "not be weakened" by a No vote and although one third of No voters said a Yes victory would strengthen Europe, they did not change their minds.
Mr Raffarin is expected to be replaced by one of three government ministers: Dominique de Villepin, the former foreign minister, now minister of the interior; Michèle Alliot-Marie, France's first woman defence minister, or Jean-Louis Borloo, the minister for social affairs.
Mr de Villepin is nearly an adoptive son to Mr Chirac, but he has annoyed the president with impetuous outbursts against Mr Raffarin and he has been on poor terms with Washington since the Iraq war.
Ms Alliot-Marie was the head of Mr Chirac's RPR party before it became the UMP and has the support of the French military and many parliamentarians. She has cultivated ties in the US government and played a positive role in Africa, where Mr de Villepin failed.
But she is considered a rigid, old-style Gaullist.
Mr Borloo is young and relatively popular. His appointment would signal that Mr Chirac intends to take unemployment and social injustice seriously. However some question whether Mr Borloo has the experience and stature needed to be prime minister.
Mr de Villepin seems to be the front-runner and several prominent French politicians have rallied to him.
Campaigning for a Yes vote in Amiens on Wednesday night, he said: "No one can imagine that the country who carried the torch of liberty, that the country who brought light to the people of the world, could decide to stop on Sunday."