A new opinion poll today put France firmly on course to reject the European Union's new constitution, increasing pressure on President Jacques Chirac before his final plea to voters to back the charter.
Mr Chirac was due to make a nationwide television address at 8:00 pm, seen as his last chance to persuade voters not to use Sunday's referendum to punish him and his government for unpopular economic policies.
A French rejection of the constitution could kill the charter, undermining France 's role in the 25-member bloc and causing a crisis of confidence in the EU that delays integration of new member states and raises jitters on financial markets.
The new survey by the TNS Sofres-Unilog polling group put opposition to the charter at 54 per cent of people who had decided how to vote, a one percentage point increase from the group's previous poll almost two weeks earlier.
Some 20 per cent of those questioned in the poll did not give a view, a pool of undecided voters which the "Yes" and "No" camps are trying to sway.
The founding father of the constitution, which sets new rules to make the EU run more smoothly following its enlargement last year, said he believed France would approve the treaty because a majority of undecided voters would support it.
"The people who are undecided are more inclined towards the 'Yes'," former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who led a Convention of lawmakers and national representatives who drafted the charter, told Reuters in an interview.
"The undecided voters are people who do not like to express their views because they feel isolated in their economic or social milieu. The ones hesitating are probably people who just have not said until now that in fact they want to vote 'Yes'."
A leading opponent of the treaty, former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, urged voters to turn out in force.
"It's not the opinion polls that count. It's the vote," Fabius told France Info radio. "I call for a massive turnout so that there is a meaningful result."