PARIS, Feb 4 (AFP) - Jitters over French ratification of the EU's constitutional treaty were increasingly apparent Friday after the country's largest trade union defied its leadership to recommend a ‘no’ vote in the national referendum later this year.

The General Labour Confederation (CGT), which was until recently linked to the Communist Party (PC), voted overwhelmingly in its 120-member national committee to reject the constitution on the grounds that it will entrench free-market economics at the expense of "social priorities."

The decision, which was against the wishes of CGT secretary-general Bernard Thibault, came amid signs that a significant part of the French left is prepared to ignore the advice of its hierarchy and vote against the text when it is put to the people probably in June.

Despite an internal ballot in favour of the treaty late last year, the main opposition Socialist Party (PS) remains deeply divided - with 56 deputies out of 140 defying party leader Francois Hollande Tuesday this week to abstain in a National Assembly debate on the issue.

With a recent wave of street protests indicating high levels of popular discontent in France, the centre-right government of President Jacques Chirac fears a tide of feeling against the constitution which will overturn the ‘yes’ vote currently predicted in the opinion polls.

In the 1992 referendum on the Maastricht treaty that paved the way to the EU's single currency, a strong early lead by supporters was whittled away to a razor-thin majority as voters used the opportunity to express unhappiness with then-president Francois Mitterrand.

And the first round of France's 2002 presidential election - in which nearly one in three voters chose candidates of the far-right or far-left - remains a warning of how easily the public can swing out of the political mainstream.

Many left-wing voters who reluctantly backed Chirac in round two of that election in order to defeat far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen feel it will be a humiliation too far to hand him another victory in the referendum on the constitution.

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