FRENCH citizens start 1997 strongly in favour of a single European currency yet hoping that Prime Minister Alain Juppe, one of its main proponents in France, will lose his job, an opinion poll showed yesterday. The Ifop survey, for the weekly L'Express, indicated that French people remain in a gloomy mood and doubt that record unemployment, of 12.7 per cent of the workforce, will fall. The poll showed that 79 per cent thought a European Union drive towards a single currency from 1999 would continue this year. And 62 per cent of the 803 people polled on December 27th said they hoped that progress towards the single currency would continue, with 35 per cent against.

President Jacques Chirac and Juppe's centre right government have said continued austerity is needed for France to meet the strict criteria to qualify for EMU.