France votes today on EU constitution

Chirac, the main proponent of the charter, could have ratified the constitution by a parliamentary vote, but under pressure from rivals in his party demanding a popular vote, he decided last year to call for a referendum. The months of debate, however, have become as much a funnel for discontent over his government as a debate about the EU.

Elected to his second term three years ago, with 82 per cent of the vote, Chirac is now so weak that a third run in 2007 looks impossible and his center-right government is adrift, in need of new leadership and ideas, said politicians, political analysts and party officials.

Nicolas Sarkozy, Chirac’s main rival in his own party, has used the yes campaign to contradict the president on crucial issues, among them Turkish entry to the EU, which Sarkozy opposes.

The Socialist leader, Francois Hollande, meanwhile, is siding with Chirac, and in an internal referendum in December, 58 per cent of party members endorsed the charter. Yet a number of senior Socialists, including the former PM Laurent Fabius, have continued to campaign for a no vote. Those no votes could prove decisive, but however the referendum goes, the party is in need of an ideological transformation and, some Socialist officials say, is at risk of breaking up.

The upshot is that France faces a long political season of account-settling at home — in addition to the reckoning it faces with its European partners if voters reject the treaty on Sunday.

The morning after is likely to be hardest for Chirac, who just passed his 10th anniversary as president and whose approval rating has dipped to 32 per cent.

Overseas voters began casting their ballots on Saturday in the referendum on the EU constitution. Voting started in Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, French islands off Canada’s eastern coast.

—NYT (with Reuters)

If France says no

Should France — one of the EU’s six founding members — reject the constitution, it would deal a harsh blow to the 72-year-old Chirac and tarnish his place in the history books. A ‘‘non’’ on Sunday would also leave the treaty dead in its tracks and plunge the EU into a period of uncertainty, as all 25 member states must approve the constitution for it to take effect.