As the date draws near (May 29th, 2005) French public opinion is in a state of flux: some voters favour the European Constitution, some only support it grudgingly, others are adamantly opposed, some less so, and there are a number of undecided voters.

Here are some of the arguments put forward by supporters of a yes-vote

· The supporters of the European Constitution do acknowledge that the weaknesses of the treaty must and can be addressed. But even the opponents admit that the constitution is better than previous agreements, above all the unworkable Nice Treaty.

· To quote Henry Kissinger's phrase, Part I of the treaty gives Europe a "phone number", i.e. a president of the Council with a two-year and a half mandate, and a Minister for Foreign Affairs.

· Part II includes the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which makes the latter binding.

· Revision processes, which are still clunky, are much less cumbersome that those laid down in the Nice Treaty : instead of a triple unanimity, a double unanimous vote will be sufficient for ordinary law-making.

· The European Parliament is the product of universal suffrage and the Council is made up of members of the executive of each country and as such accountable to their voters. Anyway, the debates about the Bolkenstein directive and the stability pact have shown that everything is negotiable.

Why is the debate so polarised in France?

1. When people discuss the treaty they tend to cherrypick; it is often the case that the same paragraph can be used, in all good faith, by both sides. You only need to quote the point out of context and not to mention surrounding clauses and you have an unanswerable argument. The thorny issue of "public services" is a case in point and has been a source of fruitless, unending debate.

2. As Europe is not yet a nation, it is impossible to organise a proper "Constitutional Congress" as contitutional experts understand the word. There is no "European people" as yet since it is the aim of the treaty to achieve this (albeit very slowly. Insisting on the fact that it is not a proper constitution is a very ethnocentric view : it gives French voters the illusion that there is an alternative. It is the typical extreme left argument, with its nostalgic yearning for direct democracy.

3. Europe is not synonymous with France : this truism is not fully grasped by many in their assessment of the treaty. This has nothing to do with the revolutionary situations of 1789 or 1958 which gave birth to constitutions that became the bedrock of political life and social progress.

4. There are no extremist parties among the supporters of a yes-vote, who range from the republican right (Chirac's UMP and some of his allies) to the bulk of the Socialist Party and of the Greens. The support of some public figures does lend moral ballast to teh caus. Take for example Robert Badinter (Mitterrand's Minister of Justice whose first job in 1981 was to abolish the death penalty), Alain Lipietz, the Greens' spokesman on the economy, or widely respected MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit. Among those who are campaigning for a yes-vote, and this might be a vote-clincher for those who remain undecided or are tempted by a blank ballot, we find people whose intellectual integrity is above suspicion : Jorge Semprun, Pascal Bruckner, Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodovar, Umberto Eco, Bono, Ettore Scola, Enki Bilal. There is little likelihoood that they would support a dodgy cause.It is the duty of French citizens to go beyond traditional partisan divides and a yes vote is not an endorsement of Prime Minister Raffarin's policies.

5. A number of those who call themselves "souverainistes", because they believe in the concept of "état-nation" as opposed to a federal Europe, and who fought tooth and nail against Maastricht (people like Philippe Seguin who led the fight in 1992, do support the constitutional treaty this time around, on the grounds of common sense and reason.

6. For the left, a no-vote is a heresy. Those French socialists who support a no-vote want fiscal harmonisation, a social dimension, the preservation of French public services, a tax and spend policy and tight social legislation. Could this be the focus of a "small Europe" ("old" Europe)? Certainly not, because then the Netherlands and Italy would be members and they have a totally different vision of how to manage their economy and how to deal with social issues. What's more, in France, the no-vote on the left is a protectionist vote. There is no way Germany with a trade surplus that amounted to 156 billion euros in 2004 would subscribe to a protectionist policy; without Europe, France would have to adapt to globalisation even more quickly.

7. It is dishonest to say the Treaty is complicated and impossible to understand: it is Europe itself which is a complicated and fragile construction.

To sum up the main points

The European Constitutional Treaty is not as rigid and set in stone as some opponents claim. The decisive factor is not how much you know about the treaty but what your ideological and philosophical beliefs are.

So there are two sides to this debate. First the ideologues, who judge the treaty as an absolute, and constantly compare it to what an ideal European constitution should be, the constitution of their dreams (those dreams being very diverse and not always in favour of a strong political Europe). Those people only see what the treaty is NOT going to bring. It's the half empty glass. If there is a no-vote, it won't be the apocalypse some have predicted, so there's no need to panic. But it will mean we remain under the jurisdiction of the Nice treaty, which much more rigid and paralysing. Besides, who can say whether 25 countries will succeed when it was so hard for the 15 to come up with one version that every country could agree on?

Opposite, you have the pragmatists, those who keep in mind the laws which rule Europe today (or don't as the case may be). They see the treaty as a big step forward : first, what doesn't exist yet may be created, like the EU as a juridical body. Second, they see it as an improvement on what is already in existence but does not satisfy (like too few fields under the combined jurisdiction of Council and Parliament). They see the treaty as the half-full glass.

They understand Europe is the end-result of a culture of compromise, that it is the "soft power" of Europe so much derided over the Atlantic which made it possible to prevent war and reunify the continent. Ever since its inception the European Parliament has used consensus as its operating mode and this is alien to the French who have a taste for revolutionary epics. The bedrock of Europe is made up of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats. The text refers at the very beginning to the concept of "person", made up of intellect and flesh, who can be hurt and humiliated and thus needs succour and dignity. There is also the social dimension (right to strike, right of petition) now enshrined in European law.

Those who are going to vote yes on May 29th do so because they know that politics is the art of the possible.