Frankreich nimmt EU-Vertrag an, Slowakei verschiebt Abstimmung[en][fr] 

Thus far, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Malta have already ratified the treaty. All four did so by parliamentary vote. 

French approval is seen as crucial to restore the country's European reputation after the French people rejected the European Constitution - written by former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing - in 2005. 

The rejection, which was considered a personal defeat for then-President Jacques Chirac, delivered a serious blow to the project of European integration and left Europe reeling for several years. 

Legislators in the French National Assembly approved the law by a comfortable margin of 336 against 52. Out of 320 senators, 265 gave their backing. 

The treaty's backers were led by President Sarkozy's conservative UMP party, which holds a strong parliamentary majority. The opposition Socialists, who were split during the failed 2005 referendum, were once again divided: 121 supported ratification, but 25 rejected it amid 59 abstentions. The Communists as a whole voted against the treaty. 

France will become the largest country to complete ratification of the Treaty once President Nicolas Sarkozy signs it into law, a procedure which is considered "a formality" and may even happen today, according to a French diplomatic source in Brussels. Sarkozy had been eager for France to ratify the treaty before it takes over the EU presidency in July. 

However, it remains unclear as to whether the president plans to use the opportunity to lend bigger media resonance to the event. "There may be a declaration," the diplomatic source said, fending off suggestions that the ratification process was being played down in the face of a possible backlash in public opinion. 

"Nobody's hiding," the source said, admitting however that the parliamentary ratification route chosen by France was "less dramatic" than a referendum. 

Meanwhile, in Slovakia, opposition lawmakers were not present in the chamber at the time of a scheduled vote on the new EU treaty in protest at a proposed new media law, leaving the ruling parties five votes short of the majority needed to approve the treaty. 

In a separate development, the Portuguese parliament rejected a demand from four parties that the new treaty be ratified by referendum. 

Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the French vote “a strong signal of the willingness to modernise the European institutions in order to make the EU more efficient and transparent.” It shows “France’s desire to adjust the European institutions of the 21st century to the challenges of globalization”, he added.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner appealed to the conscience of MPs and Senators before Thursday’s vote by saying that “all of Europe is waiting for this signal from France”. 

Sarkozy’s spokesman David Martinon considered the parliamentary approval “excellent news, a great victory fro France which has gone from being the country holding up Europe to being the one that oulled Europe out of gridlock”. 

French Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet told parliament on Thursday that ratification was “a historic moment for France” and sends a “strong signal” to the rest of Europe. 

The leader of the Socialists, Jean-Marc Ayrault, expressed his support for the treaty, not withstanding his party’s preference for a referendum because “it is the right of the French people”.