The French campaign for tomorrow's referendum on the European constitutional treaty officially ended at midnight last night, with President Jacques Chirac and supporters of the treaty headed for almost certain defeat.
Two new opinion polls published yesterday showed a 10-point lead for the No vote, at 55 per cent. A third poll indicated 54 per cent would vote No.
A French rejection of the treaty would create consternation in the nine European countries who have already ratified the text, and would humiliate Mr Chirac. The French president proposed a European constitution in June 2000, and last Bastille Day chose ratification by referendum rather than a safer parliamentary vote.
The French president yesterday sent his "very sincere congratulations" to German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on German ratification of the treaty by the Bundesrat (upper house). The vote was deliberately scheduled two days before the French referendum in the hope it would encourage the French to vote Yes.
If France votes No, Mr Chirac reportedly intends to urge other EU members to continue the ratification process. But the likelihood that the Netherlands will also vote No next Wednesday casts serious doubts on the treaty's future.
Proponents of the treaty fear a French No will cripple the "Franco-German engine" at the heart of Europe.
Former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who was responsible for drafting the treaty, attended the Bundesrat session, to show the importance of ratification. "I hope with all my heart that the day after tomorrow the French will ratify the constitution," he said.
Mr Giscard told LCI television that if France says No tomorrow, "Re-voting will be the only solution." He said there would not be the political will to re-negotiate. Prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said earlier this week that the French would not be asked to vote a second time.
In a 10-minute television address on Thursday night, President Chirac said the treaty was "Europe's response to globalisation, which is accelerating". Its rejection by France "would be experienced by Europeans as a No to Europe," and would "open up a period of division, doubt and uncertainty."
In an allusion to the British presidency of the EU, which begins on July 1st, Mr Chirac said: "If France is weakened, if the Franco-German couple is weakened, if Europe is divided, those who have an ultra-liberal concept of Europe will take things in hand."
A No vote tomorrow is expected to usher in a period of political turmoil in France. Mr Chirac tacitly admitted that he will change the government. "Fears and expectations have been expressed," he said. "I will respond by giving a new impetus to our action, for greater solidarity."
The interior minister, Dominique de Villepin, who was called to the Élysee Palace late yesterday, is considered a front-runner for the prime minister's job.
But sacking Mr Raffarin is unlikely to silence Mr Chirac's critics, who reproach him for ignoring the message sent by voters in three lost elections last year. "There was something pathetic about seeing Jacques Chirac using his last bullet to try to save himself from what he caused - a disaster," said the left-wing newspaper Libération.
All of the mainstream political parties that alternate in government supported the treaty, while those on the far left and far right opposed it. Polls indicate that a majority of socialists followed renegade socialist figures who disobeyed party rules to campaign against the treaty.