French referendum kicks off in France

The French referendum on the European constitutional treaty kicked off at 8:00 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) on Sunday in metropolitan France.

About 42 million eligible French voters are expected to cast ballots in 64,700 polling stations all over the country.

The result of the referendum will not be available before 10:00 p.m. (2000 GMT), time to close the referendum in some metropolitan areas such as Paris and Lyon, said the French Audiovisual Superior Council (CSA).

"No result of the referendum, partial or definitive, will be communicated to the public through print media or any audiovisual communication means," the CSA said last Wednesday.

According to the Paris town hall, 1.5 tons of ballot forms, including 1.32 million ballot forms for "no" and the same number for "yes," are prepared for the 853 polling stations in Paris alone.

Voters on the Saint-Pierre and Miquelon islands off Canada's eastern coast are the first overseas French to give their opinion on the European Union (EU) constitution. They began to cast votes at 8:00 a.m. local time (1000 GMT) Saturday, followed by voters in other French overseas territories in the day, including Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, and Tahiti and New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Voters in the French overseas department of Reunion began voting at 6:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) on Sunday.

The EU constitution requires the approval of all the 25 EU members to go into force.

On Friday, Germany became the ninth EU member state to ratify the constitutional treaty after Austria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

The Netherlands will be the next EU member country to hold its referendum on the treaty on Wednesday.

The latest two surveys, released Friday evening before the campaign deadline set by the CSA, showed that most French people would reject the constitution, with a CSA poll registering a "no" vote of 56 percent and a poll by TNS Sofres of 52 percent.

Source: Xinhua