French politics. Après mai, le déluge?

With a “no” vote in the Euro-referendum looming, politicians prepare to minimise, or else exploit, the fallout in Paris

IT WAS once a nightmare scenario; now it is becoming a working hypothesis. Every one of the 20-odd polls since mid-March suggests the French are set to reject the draft European constitution at their referendum on May 29th, with the “no” vote mobilising 51-58%. The question is increasingly not whether France will say no, but what will happen if it does.

The result of the French vote is not a foregone conclusion. One poll this week, by Ipsos for Le Figaro, put the “no” vote at 52%, against 48% for a “yes ” - -a highly uncertain margin. When asked, in the same poll, not how they would vote but what result they would like to see, 38% hoped for a “no”, next to 37% for a “yes”: an even finer balance. Moreover, France has plunged itself into a real debate. Political discussions rage constantly on television and the radio; constitutional texts have become unlikely items on the bestseller list.

This week, Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schroder turned up in Paris to help President Jacques Chirac step up his effort to turn opinion round. To cast a “yes” vote, said the French president, would be to choose a “more powerful Europe” and “to reinforce France”. All the same, in the face of a persistent string of “no” polls, the government is beginning to steel itself for the worst. Manoeuvring for the day after has already begun.

If the French do vote “no”, one thing can be ruled out: the resignation of President Chirac. That is despite the fact that a precedent exists. Charles de Gaulle quit after losing a referendum (on a constitutional reform) in 1969, a year after France was rocked by the rebellion of May 1968. When asked in a recent televised debate whether he would repeat de Gaulle's gesture, President Chirac replied clearly that he would not. The referendum, he said, was not a plebiscite on his rule.

All the same, swelling discontent with Mr Chirac's government, combined with a weariness as his tenth anniversary as president approaches in May, feeds the “no” camp. Whether he likes it or not, a rejection of the constitution would in part be a rejection of him. While the president would surely try to rise above defeat, appealing to the unity of the nation and the need to respect the will of the majority, his authority would be seriously weakened. Discontent and protests would spread.

How could he restore credibility? One option might be to dissolve the National Assembly and seek a fresh mandate for a new government. But the last time he did this, in 1997, parliament lurched to the left and Mr Chirac ended up “cohabiting” with a Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin. Mischievous minds wonder if a repeat of that outcome might not rather suit Mr Chirac: two years of a Socialist government ahead of the 2007 presidential election might help to weaken the left and restore the right - possibly even Mr Chirac himself - to power. Yet this scenario is far-fetched: too uncomfortable and too risky.

Shuffling prime ministers

The most likely upshot of a French “no” would be a government reshuffle, and the replacement of Jean-Pierre Raffarin as prime minister. Doggedly loyal but uninspiring, Mr Raffarin has seen his confidence rating sink from 64% in 2002 to just 27% today, according to TNS-Sofres, a pollster. Even his own ministers, jostling for position as his successor, have begun to undermine him. Most noisily, Dominique de Villepin, the former foreign minister now at the interior ministry, called last week for a change of direction in government whatever the referendum result, a comment widely interpreted as a call to replace Mr Raffarin - and a declaration of his own candidacy for the job.

Mr de Villepin indeed appears to be the most likely successor. Loyal to Mr Chirac, he was for several years the president's chief of staff and embodied France's opposition - to huge popular acclaim - to the war in Iraq. A romantic idealist, who writes poetry in his spare time and keeps a bust of Napoleon in his office, Mr de Villepin would not be a straightforward choice, however. He is unelected, having never stood for office, and so not obviously suited to the prime minister's job of keeping difficult ministers and deputies in line and listening to the electorate. And he is tempestuous. While foreign minister, for instance, he once mounted a unilateral mission to rescue a French hostage from the jungle in Colombia, which ended in failure and fiasco.

There are alternatives. They include Michele Alliot-Marie, another Chirac loyalist who has been a tough and admired defence minister; Jean-Louis Borloo, the jobs minister; or Thierry Breton, the new finance minister and former telecoms boss, though he is also unelected. There is, though, a further option, and in many ways it is the most logical one: Nicolas Sarkozy, the ambitious head of the ruling UMP party who has been a longstanding challenger to Mr Chirac's leadership of the political right.

The appointment of Mr Sarkozy, who has never hidden his hopes of succeeding Mr Chirac, would not automatically boost confidence in government: he too has been campaigning for a yes, and so would carry some of the responsibility of defeat. But his appointment would certainly inject an impressive dose of energy and purpose into government.

He remains the most popular leader on the right, both among deputies and the French at large. Which is why, for Mr Chirac, he would be the most risky choice of all. If Mr Sarkozy made a success of it, he would be well placed to stand in 2007. But the appeal for the current president is that the job might also overwhelm his rival. Under the fifth republic, no French prime minister has ever moved directly from that job to the presidency.

With the possibility of a 'no' vote in the EU constitution referendum, French politicians prepare to minimise, or else exploit, the fallout in France;