Report that Chirac backed Ahern for EU job denied

President Jacques Chirac did not ask the Taoiseach to be a candidate for the presidency of the European Commission, a source close to Mr Chirac said.

A report in yesterday's Sunday Times said that Mr Chirac raised the subject with Mr Ahern at a dinner of heads of state and government in Brussels on Thursday night. This was denied in Paris.

"It was like a pressure cooker," a French source said. "Most of the candidates (for the presidency of the Commission) were present. The presidents (of France and the European Council) barely had a chance to talk to each other."

At his press conference on Friday night, Mr Chirac was asked whom he would support for the presidency, now that the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt had been excluded. Mr Chirac said he had no one in mind and that there was no candidate backed by France.

"The same 15 names are going round as a week ago," an official source said. "At no point has the name of Bertie Ahern come up." The source said it was not impossible that France could support the Taoiseach in the future, but that Franco-German endorsement might be a disservice to Mr Ahern at this point. An Irish source said that although the Taoiseach is not a candidate, he would have enjoyed French support if he had been.

Though Mr Chirac's UMP party belongs to the EPP grouping in the European Parliament, the Élysée has taken exception to the EPP's attempts to impose one of its members at the head of the Commission.

"The president must be chosen for his abilities, not because of his party. This is a power struggle between the parliament and the council," a French source said.

Le Monde suggested that Mr Michel Barnier, the French foreign minister, could be a candidate. But a Frenchman, Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, is president of the European Central Bank, and it is unlikely that France could hold two of Europe's top posts at the same time.

President Chirac on Saturday night took the unusual step of making a national television broadcast, behind French and European flags, to explain the "historic event" of the treaty.

"This constitution is good for Europe," Mr Chirac said. "It is good for France. It will enable Europe to take decisions more rapidly, more efficiently, more clearly, and to be heard better in today's and tomorrow's world. It will also enable France to weigh in with a greater weight in Europe." French newspapers said the treaty was a step forward, but regretted the failure of the 25 to choose a new president of the Commission. "Not only does this setback tarnish the success represented by the approval of the constitutional treaty," Le Monde said. "It confirms the deep division that the debate on the Constitution has already shown up."

Mr Tony Blair's successful defence of Britain's "red lines" received widespread, and negative, coverage in France.

"Not only did he torpedo the candidacy ... of the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, sponsored by the Franco-German couple," said Libération, "but he also managed to drain part of the substance of the European constitution adopted by the 25."

Mainstream French political parties are unanimous in their praise for the new treaty, though the socialists regret the failure to establish qualified majority voting in social policy.

The extreme left denounced what it sees as the liberal economic policies, while the extreme right decried it as "supranational".

Mr Jean Marie Le Pen, head of the extreme right-wing National Front, said the treaty represented "the submission of France" to a body "which can only evolve towards a totalitarian State".