Chirac: Britain must hold Euro referendum

French president Jacques Chirac will tell Britain to go ahead with a referendum on the EU constitution even if his own country rejects the treaty, it emerged today.

Mr Chirac made a last-ditch plea to his countrymen to vote yes this Sunday on the treaty to overhaul the workings of the alliance.

But he is so keen to keep the project alive that he will urge Tony Blair and other leaders to proceed with ratification of the plan if the French reject it.

Mr Blair was expected to discuss the possible fall-out of a French no vote when he met his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi today. Mr Blair flew out to Rome on the first stage of a whirlwind diplomatic mission ahead of the G8 summit in Gleneagles in July.

The EU constitution is aimed at transforming the union's rules to cope with 25 members. While French opponents fear it will impose British-style reforms of their economy, Eurosceptics here believe it gives too much power to Brussels.

Some British ministers argue that it would be impossible to hold a British poll on the EU constitution if the French vote no because the final shape of the treaty would be uncertain.

With opinion polls suggesting the French will reject the constitution in the vote on Sunday, the Prime Minister led a lengthy discussion on Europe at the weekly meeting of the Cabinet yesterday. Mr Blair is committed to holdinga referendum in Britain, which many observers believe the Government would struggle to win.

He has indicated that if the treaty collapses as a result of being rejected by the French and Dutch, there would be no need to go ahead with the referendum in the UK.

But some of Mr Blair's allies say he would be very disappointed if Britain lost the historic chance to prove itself a part of Europe.

A yes vote in a British referendum would also give Mr Blair the perfect end-point of his premiership and allow a decent transition of power to Gordon Brown.

In his talks in Rome, Mr Blair, in his capacity as G8 president, was seeking to win Mr Berlusconi over to his plan to cancel debt for Africa and secure an agreement on moves to combat climate change. Today's talks are the first in a round which will see the Premier travelling to Washington, Moscow, Paris and Germany while holding video conference link talks with his Canadian and Japanese counterparts.

It emerged today that the French are working on plans to rescue the constitution in the wake of a no vote. Under one plan, there would be no rerun of a referendum but each of the presidential candidates in 2007 would promise to ratify the treaty if they won power.

Mr Chirac made a dramatic televised appeal to the French last night.

"The choice is about your future and that of your children, the future of France and the future of Europe," he said.