EU Vote Splintering France

Chirac's popularity is lower than George Bushes. Go ahead, read it again. Jacques "32 perent" Chirac's voter approval is so thin, it's probably the end of his career. We'll know at 1 p.m. PST today, when the results of the election are posted.

Upate: Sunday morning, Agence Presse France (in English) reports that turnout is high, and speculates that a high turnout will favor the yes vote.

There's a good analysis in the International Herald Tribune of political affairs in France on the eve of the plebicite on the EU constitution, a vote that appears likely to fail. It shows how Chirac has polarized France even more than that cowboy in the White House has polarized America:

The Socialist Party, one of the two main pillars of French democracy, is fractured and possibly fatally wounded, with its voters now so deeply divided that, if it doesn't break up entirely, it will at the very least need an ideological makeover.

The deterioration of the political center has enabled a rise in forms of populism generally viewed as dangerous for democracy, with the nationalism of the extreme right and the protectionism of the extreme left making inroads into mainstream discourse.

The upshot is that France faces a long political season of account-settling at home - in addition to the reckoning it faces with its European partners if voters reject the treaty on Sunday.