The fate of Europe may be decided over the next six weeks as France tears itself apart in a vicious battle over the European constitutional treaty. In the past month, more than a dozen opinion polls have indicated that a majority of the French will vote against the treaty, writes Lara Marlowe in Paris.
The highest Non vote of 56 per cent was tallied in two separate polls on April 15th, the day after President Jacques Chirac's two-hour televised discussion with young people.
If France says Non on May 29th, the treaty could in theory survive if it was ratified by 90 per cent of the EU's 25 members. In that case, President Chirac said, France would be the "black sheep" of Europe. In a rare note of humour in this bitter campaign, the anti-treaty, right-wing senator Charles Pasqua immediately launched a website called www.moutonnoir.info.
But a French No vote could have a snowball effect, prompting the Dutch to reject the treaty three days later, followed perhaps by others. If by some miracle France votes Yes, the treaty would still have only a 49 per cent chance of coming into force, a study by the Morgan Stanley investment bank has predicted.
Perhaps the greatest achievement of the No camp has been to cast the referendum in terms of class struggle between la France d'en haut (the upper classes) and la France d'en bas (grassroots France).
A poll published yesterday by Libération showed that 85 per cent of high-level cadres support the treaty. In the same poll 75 per cent of workers said that they would vote No.
French newspapers are billing the campaign as "psychodrama" and France's political class is playing the role of an aristocracy doomed to the guillotine. The four principal parties - the UMP and UDF on the right, the PS (socialists) and Greens on the left - all officially support the treaty. Yet all face revolts within their rank-and-file, especially on the left.
Is there any point in reminding the French of their own fickleness? The socialist leadership voted democratically to support the treaty last December. Yet today 55 per cent of French socialists oppose the treaty.
The French gave Mr Chirac a landslide victory in May 2002. Horror at the presence of the extreme right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the run-off explained the magnitude of his 82 per cent score. But French voters then gave Mr Chirac a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, knowing full well that the right espoused liberal economic policies.
The star speaker at the founding congress of Mr Chirac's centre-right UMP was José Manuel Barroso, then prime minister of Portugal and now president of the European Commission. In 2002 his blatantly liberal speech received rapturous applause.
But in today's France liberalism is demonised. Mr Barroso was to have appeared on French television to campaign for a Yes vote. The appearance was cancelled, reportedly at the insistence of the Élysée.
Turkey's application to join the EU has subsided as an issue. The desire for a "social Europe" which would protect the French welfare state is the chief demand of those voting against the treaty. In their Yes campaign, the official PS claim (somewhat disingenuously?) that the treaty goes a long way towards establishing a social Europe.
The socialist No camp is led by the former prime minister and finance minister Laurent Fabius. The PS were in power from 1997 until 2002, but did little to achieve a social Europe even though, for part of that period, 13 of Europe's 15 governments were socialist.
In his television appearance on April 14th, Mr Chirac three times excoriated the "Anglo-Saxon, Atlantist, ultra-liberal drift", which he says "pushes Europe" and "favours globalisation". By saying Yes to the treaty, he argued, France will maintain its influence in Europe and will be better positioned to fight the "ultra-liberal drift".
A majority of French people opposed European enlargement, so Mr Chirac decided not to hold a referendum on the Athens Treaty, which brought 10 new states into the EU. He may be paying for this now. France ardently supported Romania's application, but further enlargement is such a sensitive issue in France that the Élysée unsuccessfully tried to postpone the signing of the treaty of accession for Romania and Bulgaria in Brussels on April 25th.
The greatest challenge facing the Yes camp is to shift the focus of the debate from domestic discontent, fuelled by 10 per cent unemployment, to the treaty itself. As former prime minister Lionel Jospin said last week: "The French want to say merde to someone or something."
I received a typical explanation from a Parisian taxi driver who will vote No "because we were promised a fare rise in January and we did not get it".
"But that has nothing to do with the treaty," I reminded him. "I know," he replied. "But we're fed up and we want to tell the politicians, and there's no other election until 2007." Others who intend to vote No complained that the treaty contains no provision for a Europe-wide minimum wage and no guarantee of the right to abortion.
The government is beginning to acknowledge France's social malaise. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, the interior minister, Dominique de Villepin, said two days ago that the feelings expressed by the French would have an effect on national politics.
Prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin's approval rating has sunk to 29 per cent and the Yes camp is trying to cut him out of the campaign. France's place in Europe and Europe's future may be at stake in the May 29th referendum, but most French politicians seem more preoccupied with jockeying for power in the aftermath of a No vote.
Mr Chirac rejected a suggestion by his rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, that he ought to emulate Charles de Gaulle and step down if he loses the referendum. The president's advisers have hinted that he might help his cause by promising not to seek a third term in 2007. Malicious commentators say that a sure-fire way to ratify the treaty would be a commitment by Mr Chirac to resign if the majority votes Yes.