The Yes camp looks frailer than in 1992

France's Yes campaigners on Europe like to draw comfort from their victory in the referendum in 1992, when they persuaded voters to adopt the euro.

But it would be rash to draw too much reassurance: the result in 1992 was close and both the context and the content of the two campaigns are very different.

Then, as now, the Yes camp started the campaign with a clear majority.

Three months before the referendum on the Maastricht treaty, containing the rules for Europe's single currency, the Yes camp commanded the support of 63 per cent of voters.

Last-minute intervention

That support rapidly dwindled before the last-minute intervention of Francois Mitterrand, the then president, who went on television and outdebated Philippe Seguin, his chief critic.

The Yes camp squeaked through with 51 per cent of the vote. "In 1992, without Mitterrand, the French would have said No to Maastricht," says one Socialist politician.

Sylvie Goulard, a professor at Sciences Po, Paris's political sciences school, argues there are three main differences between the situation in 1992 and 2005 all to the detriment of the current Yes campaign.

First, the opposition to the euro was conducted mainly on a rarefied level, with opponents of the single currency focusing on economics.

This time, the No camp is invoking populist arguments, whether or not they are connected with the constitution. "[Laurent] Fabius [the deputy leader of the Socialist party] has broken a taboo by saying that you can be against this constitution and still be for Europe. That is absolutely absurd but it is popular nonetheless," Goulard says.

Second, Chirac is not Mitterrand. Like Mitterrand in 1992, Chirac is planning a television appearance to sell his cause. But Chirac is far less of an instinctive European than his predecessor.

"You could like or dislike Mitterrand but everyone knew that he was an acknowledged European. I am not sure that Chirac has the same authority," says Goulard.

Third, the European context is very different. In 1992, the Soviet Union had just imploded and democracy was flourishing in eastern Europe.

Close political relationship

France was clearly the politically dominant force in the EU with Jacques Delors, a French former Socialist minister, in charge of the Commission.

Mitterrand also had a close political relationship with Helmut Kohl, then the German chancellor, jointly setting the European agenda.

Since then, France's influence over the expanded EU has diminished and Jacques Barrot, its commissioner, is not regarded as greatly influential in Brussels.

Goulard's considered conclusion? "In this country, everything is imaginable," she says. "The French like to disobey."