EuroFighters

The former French prime minister Laurent Fabius says his Socialist party should vote against the EU constitution today as a matter of straightforward principle. He argues that the text enshrines a liberal, free-market vision of Europe that is far removed from the model espoused by France's left.

In practice, Mr Fabius knows full well that if the no vote carries the day in the finely-balanced internal referendum being staged by France's Socialist party today, there will be no serious obstacle between him and nomination as the French left's next presidential candidate.

Over the past three months, the brilliant 57-year-old technocrat - who, in 1984, became France's youngest ever prime minister at 37 years of age - has appeared on almost every serious TV and radio talkshow, written dozens of newspaper columns and even published a book to promote his arguments.

The constitution, he says, does not meet the minimum requirements set by his party in terms of job protection, worker rights and welfare provision. It will, he argues, undermine French efforts to boost employment and to prevent companies from moving to low-wage, low-tax countries.

"In its current form, I cannot vote for it," he said recently. "It does not help, as a Socialist, that it has the full backing of a rightwing president, finance minister and employers' federation. We have to look at the content of the constitution, point by point, and demand and negotiate the necessary amendments."

However, the Socialists' deputy leader, who has never hidden his presidential ambitions, has not found it easy to convince every French leftist - let alone President Jacques Chirac's ruling centre-right - that he is acting out of entirely selfless motives. In late October, polls showed that 65% of Socialist voters would vote yes.

The outcome of today's poll of necessarily more militant party members is, however, by no means so clear cut. Its result could have serious repercussions for a wider Europe, and for the French Socialist party.

First, if the French left's no camp emerges victorious, Mr Chirac and his ruling centre-right government will find it considerably harder to swing the French electorate as a whole behind a yes vote next year. And if France votes no, the entire constitution project will collapse because it requires the backing of all 25 member sates.

So Mr Fabius's high-stakes game has drawn stinging criticism from many of Europe's leading socialists, who - while admitting the constitution's text is not perfect - argue that it is the best compromise available between more interventionist French ideas and the economic and social liberalism espoused by Britain, Italy and most of the new eastern European member states.

They argue that, if the constitution fails, the European project will be set back several decades.

Last week, the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, the Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and the Czech premier, Sranislav Gross, published a broadside in Le Monde entitled "Yes, yes, three times yes to the EU constitution".

Britain's Europe minister, Denis MacShane, told the same newspaper that Mr Fabius had succumbed to populism and demagogery.

"Laurent Fabius and his friends are the new Cathars of Europe," Mr MacShane said. "They want a pure Europe, whereas it is a question of making the actual Europe work better. At the end of the day, they will simply succeed in rendering it immobile. The constitution is neither leftwing nor rightwing - it is neutral. What counts is the political will of Europe's governments."

But the most dramatic consequences of the Socialists' referendum could well be reserved for the party itself, which - amid violent accusations of disloyalty, selfishness and even treachery - has been tearing itself in two over the issue since September. It is unlikely to be able heal the wounds for some considerable time to come.

Mr Fabius's position may, of course, be a genuine reflection of his political and social beliefs. But most neutral observers see it more as a bold, clever, if deeply cynical effort, in preparation for a possible presidential bid, to win the backing of that significant part of French Socialist opinion that is still far from comfortable with the notions of a market economy and free competition.

As more or less the only remaining presidential hopeful from the immediate entourage of François Mitterrand, the late Socialist president who appointed him his financial adviser as early as 1975, the highly ambitious Mr Fabius knows the next elections, in 2007, will probably be his last realistic chance for a run at the Elysée palace.

To secure the nomination, he had to distinguish himself radically, and on a major policy issue, from his two chief rivals: François Hollande, the party's jovial, popular but not particularly distinguished chairman, and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a respected and authoritative former finance minister, both of whom have come out firmly in favour of a yes vote.

Mr Fabius has taken a calculated risk that, if it pays off, would utterly reverse the French Socialist party's current hierarchy. Unfortunately, for many Europeans both inside and outside France, his strategy amounts to little more than playing with the future functioning of the EU for his own personal political advantage.