France: Three-quarters of French voters want to have a say on the European Union's future constitution through a referendum that pro-European politicians fear could scuttle the project, according to an opinion poll published yesterday.
The newspaper Le Monde published a BVA survey showing that 74 per cent of those questioned wanted a referendum, a joker card in French politics because voters often use these ballots to punish an unpopular government rather than decide the issue at hand.
Eurosceptics on the far right were the strongest supporters of a referendum, indicating they were eager to use the campaign to rally voters against further integration, Le Monde said.
However, a full 72 per cent of those surveyed supported the idea of a European constitution in principle, it said.
France's last referendum on a European issue - the 1992 vote on the Maastricht Treaty - turned into a European drama as the two-thirds pro-treaty majority at the start of the campaign melted to a razor-thin majority of only 50.95 per cent.
In the most recent reminder of how fickle voters can be, Corsicans surprised the government by rejecting a plan for limited autonomy in a referendum last July.
All EU states must ratify the text, either by parliamentary vote or referendum, for it to come into force. Paris can choose either procedure, but President Jacques Chirac said last year the treaty would need popular approval through a referendum.
He has since taken a vaguer stand and other leading politicians have been wary of taking a clear position.
"Jean-Pierre Raffarin has said he doesn't want to be the prime minister who calls a referendum and loses it," one official remarked.