French opinion firms up

The Press Association is reporting (see Scotsman website) that the "no" vote is winning in the French referendum.

This is yet another poll, one that shows 53 percent of the French voting against the EU constitution compared with 47 percent who would vote for it. A government spokesman, Jean-Francois Cope, wearily responded that rejecting the document seemed to have become "fashionable" (à la mode).

The poll was carried out by the Louis Harris firm and published in the daily Liberation. But what is especially interesting is that 82 percent of those questioned "felt sure of their choice" and were thus unlikely to change their views.

Nevertheless, 66 percent of the 1,002 people questioned said they felt uninformed about the constitution, while 50 percent said Chirac's televised "debate" last Thursday failed to convince them to vote "yes", compared with 22 percent who accepted his arguments.