PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac, buoyed by polls that show the 'yes' camp gaining ground ahead of the EU constitution referendum, on Tuesday appealed to skeptical left-leaning voters to support the text.
The constitution was "neither on the right nor the left", Chirac said in an interview with two journalists from state-owned France 2, his second live television appearance in defense of the treaty ahead of the May 29 referendum.
He called the text the "daughter of 1989", the year the Berlin Wall fell, and "especially the daughter of 1789", referring to the French Revolution, because it embraces "all the values of France".
The center-right French leader said the treaty, aimed at simplifying decision-making in the expanded European Union, would mark "a decisive step toward a more socially conscious situation" in the bloc.
His arguments seemed specifically aimed at persuading left-wing voters, who remained the most unpersuaded about the merits of the constitution.
Tuesday's live interview followed up on an April 14 appearance with a group of 80 young adults.
With less than a month to go before French voters cast their ballots on the landmark EU treaty, and with his political legacy on the line, Chirac was stepping up his campaign, using all opportunities to defend the constitution.
From last week's maiden flight of the new Airbus A380 jet to a meeting in Paris of artists and intellectuals that wrapped up Tuesday, the French leader has not missed a chance to extol the virtues of European integration.
"You personify the Europe that we want -- a united Europe, a Europe of progress, an ambitious Europe," Chirac on Thursday told thousands of Airbus employees gathered on a runway beside the first A380 super-jumbo airliner in Toulouse.
"For the first time, the cultural aspect of European construction will be elevated to the rank of one of the Union's fundamental objectives," he told the cultural glitterati in Paris on Monday.
The president's task on Tuesday -- to explain how the constitution can benefit France -- was made a bit easier by the release of a flurry of opinion polls indicating that the 'yes' camp could prevail on May 29.
Three polls released since Saturday have indicated that a majority of French voters will approve the European Union constitution, after a string of surveys since mid-March had indicated a victory for the 'no' camp.
All 25 EU member states must approve the constitutional treaty, either by popular referendum or parliamentary vote.
If such a heavyweight EU member as France rejected the constitution, many observers believed the treaty would be stopped in its tracks.
05/03/2005 18:45 GMT