PARIS: French voters’ opposition to the EU constitution has risen to a record high amid mounting concern in Brussels that an apparently inevitable French non will torpedo the treaty before it is launched. “It is very clear that the European commission is worried by the turn the statistics are taking,” an EU spokeswoman, Françoise Le Bail, told reporters in Brussels.

“We very much hope that these figures will change.” A poll for the free newspaper Metro by MarketTools research group on Friday showed 62 per cent of people who have decided how to vote will reject the treaty in France’s May 29 referendum, four points up from the previous 58 per cent high in a survey by the BVA agency released on Thursday.

European leaders and EU officials also expressed their concern at the consequences of a French no vote, because the constitution needs to be ratified by all 25 member states to come into force. Luxembourg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, whose country holds the EU presidency until the end of June, said Europe would continue to develop if France voted no to the constitution.

“But we would lose two decades, during which certain parts of the world would move ahead by adopting Europe’s model, while others would catch up with us,” Mr Juncker told the French Roman Catholic newspaper La Croix. It was unrealistic to think, as some of the treaty’s opponents suggest, that the constitution could be renegotiated, he added.

In Amsterdam, the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, said that if France voted no, “Europe will not fall apart. At best it would stagnate. At worst, we would see some form of chaos”. Yesterday’s French poll showed that the no vote, which last September was down at 31%, has now gained more than 10 points in barely four weeks since it first nudged into the lead on March 18 — a momentum that many commentators and analysts are describing as unstoppable.

The MarketTools poll contrasts with one by the CSA group on Thursday that showed that support for a yes vote, while still below 50%, had jumped by four points over the past fortnight. But there can be little doubt about the overall trend: 22 successive polls have suggested French voters will reject the constitution.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service