Europe's landmark new constitution faces a make-or-break referendum in France today, when a polarized nation decides whether to boost or block the next giant leap forward in a half-century of efforts to unite the continent.
After months of impassioned debate over the merits and drawbacks of the EU's historic first charter, the complex business of getting 25 countries to agree on an ambitious roadmap for their future hung on the two simplest words in the French language: "oui" and "non."
The latest poll gave the "no" camp a 52 percent lead over the "yes" camp's 48 percent, keeping alive the possibility that the treaty could face a humiliating defeat in the nation that played a lead role in drafting it.
All 25 EU member states must ratify the constitution before it can take effect next year, and a French rejection would be the first in Europe.
A French "yes" -- coupled with improbable approval in another referendum Wednesday in the Netherlands, where opposition is running at about 60 percent -- could give the charter unstoppable momentum as a dozen other nations decide its fate in months to come.
But a defeat here would resonate even more powerfully across the continent: In 1951, two Frenchmen -- Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet -- launched the six-nation European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor to today's EU.
"If we vote `no,' we may be left out of everything," said Lucien Steinamm, a 23-year-old gardener among the more than 20 percent undecided voters.
The possibility that the EU's latest bold attempt to knit together its ragtag club of nations could wind up stillborn had many wondering what might lie ahead.
"If there was to be a French `no' vote -- a serious big rejection of the treaty -- followed by a rejection in the Netherlands, then I think that this treaty is in effect dead," said John Palmer, an analyst with the European Policy Center in Brussels, Belgium.
"The danger then would be that we would enter a period of profound stagnation, maybe for two, three or more years, until we have new elections in France and some of the other key countries," he warned.
Backers say the constitution, which EU leaders signed last October, will streamline EU operations and decision-making, make the bloc more accessible to its 450 million citizens, and give it a president and foreign minister so it can speak with one voice in world affairs.
Opponents fear it will strip nations of national identity and sovereignty and trigger an influx of cheap labor just as European powers such as France and Germany struggle mightily to contain double-digit unemployment.
Nine nations -- Austria, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain -- already have ratified it by referendum or parliamentary vote.
In Paris, where bitter debate over the charter has so dominated cafe and household chatter that even bakers are selling large France-shaped "oui" and "non" gingerbread cookies, President Jacques Chirac put his government's credibility on the line with an all-out campaign to persuade nearly 42 million sharply divided voters to say "yes."
"I'm definitely going to vote `yes.' It's the logical progression in everything we've done since the Treaty of Rome" that formed the embryo of the modern EU in 1963, said Jerome Wyncke, a 33-year-old computer programmer. "I'm for a federation in Europe like in the United States."
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