BERLIN, May 30 (AFP) - Germany insisted on Monday that the rejection of the European Union constitution by its closest ally France did not leave the treaty dead in the water.

However the Franco-German axis - often referred to as the driving force of the European project - faced an uncertain future despite Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's insistence that the partnership was not in danger.

Schroeder conceded that the clear-cut French outcome was "a setback" but said it was not the end of the road for the constitution, which Germany has already ratified without a referendum.

"I greatly regret the outcome of the referendum in France, but at the same time we must respect this vote," the chancellor said late on Sunday.

"It is a setback for the process of ratifying the constitution, but not its end.

"It is also not the end of the Franco-German partnership in and for Europe.

"This is an opinion shared by French President Jacques Chirac, whom I have already spoken to on the telephone."

Yet while German leaders stopped short of accusing French voters of betraying their fellow founding members of the European Union, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier highlighted the potentially devastating effect of the result on the Franco-German partnership.

"This is the first time in 50 years that the French and Germans have diverged in Europe on a fundamental issue. Without this constitution, Europe is broken down politically," Barnier said on French national television.

He said the Franco-German conception of the EU faced being superseded by a "much more liberal Europe, one big supermarket".

His German counterpart Joschka Fischer said that while it was "without doubt a setback", it was "not the end of the process of integration".

"We must now analyse the reasons for the French result," Fischer said at a press conference.

However, he added, "we will not get a better treaty than this one".

Ulrike Guerot, an analyst at the Berlin-based German Marshall Fund Institute, said Germany must now take the lead in guiding France out of the political chaos the referendum had created.

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