France fights EU fatalism with 4 days to go

Paris is fighting fatalism over the outcome of the French EU constitution vote – which is just four days away.

Polling is giving ‘non’ campaigners a consistent 53-54 per cent lead as France enters the endgame on the May 29 referendum.

The next three days are expected to see an charm offensive from the French great and good of France to boost support.

French President Jacques Chirac is planning to make a televised appeal to the nation on Thursday as the clock ticks on Sunday poll.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin insists that the battle for French hearts and minds is not over.

“Nothing is settled, nothing is decided. France must open its heart to Europe,” he said on Wednesday.

But in an early move in a blame game, EU constitution draftsman Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has blamed the government for a slide in French support for Europe.

“When we meet difficulties they [French leaders] often blame Europe. So how can we be surprised then that the French have a bad idea of Europe?” he told Les Echos.

Giscard warned that politicians should have kept outr of the debate to avoid turning the vote into a plebiscite on an unpopular Chirac government.

“We know that in France referendums almost automatically slide towards becoming plebiscites,” he said.

“It would have been better for the public powers to keep their distance, to avoid that temptation.”

Former European Commission President, the French Socialist Jacques Delors said Chirac has “the last card to play”.

“The president of the republic has a last card to play by intervening on television. He is the president. He can find the words to persuade three to four per cent of the people who would otherwise be abstentionists from the right or people who are not ideologues from the left,” he told FT Europe.

"But it is evident that it is difficult because up until this moment the vertiginous fall in his popularity has coincided with the rise of the No. That's an indisputable fact."

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