The French Socilalists have voten convincingly in favor of the EU Constitution in an internal referendum.

The man leading the "no" campaign within the party, former prime minister and now deputy party leader Laurent Fabius, has accepted defeat.

He had tried to rally supporters by saying he loved Europe too much to let France sign up to a bad treaty.

For him, the European Constitution is too Anglo-Saxon, too much about free markets and competition, too little about workers’ rights or full employment, our correspondent says.

But others in the French Socialist Party opposed his campaign.

Socialist leader Francois Hollande agreed the constitution was not perfect, but said a "no" for the party and the country that helped build Europe would be catastrophic.

This internal referendum was called after Fabius called for a "no" vote in the national referendum on the Constitution, due some time in 2005, that will authorise or not the ratification by France of the treaty. Apart from internal politicking (Fabius probably saw this as a last ditch effort to exist in a party where he has been slowly marginalised, by jumping on a hot issue) and the reluctance of some Socialists to vote yet again alongside Chirac after the humiliating 2002 election, the real possibility that the Socialists would vote against ratification is a testimony to France’s lost bearings and (unwarranted) lack of confidence in its influence on the European stage.

So this unexpectedly strong showing for the Yes is reinvigorating. It comes in that most legitimate way, after a real, serious, open,  political debate, it improves the chances of France ratifying the Constitution (and thus avoiding a real crisis of confidence in Europe at a time when a functional Europe is more needed than ever), and it acknowledges that Europe’s constitution is neither "socialist" nor "liberal" (as each side likes to fear), but a way to describe how decisions are taken together on an expanding swathe of topics of common interests, and it shows that France is not completely hopeless!

So 3 cheers today for French Socialists!