With Britons set to go to the polls in June, there are increasing signs the UK’s referendum is paving the way for other European countries to question their own relationship with Brussels.
It comes after calls for Germany to have their own EU referendum in the aftermath of the migrant crisis.
In a fresh blow to the EU,
53 per cent of the French voted in favour of holding a UK-style referendum on the country’s membership.
Such a response from one of the EU’s founder members will undoubtedly ruffle feathers in Brussels.
Front National (FN) leader Marine Le Pen welcomed the poll results in a recent blog post, saying French demands for a referendum were “extremely encouraging”.
A quarter (25 per cent) of French people also want to see an end of free movement throughout Europe after the EU’s Schengen zone was heavily criticised in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.
Alongside Germany, France is considered the central pillar of the European project.
But a struggling economy and a faltering government has fuelled a rising Eurosceptic sentiment in France, as well as an escalating migrant crisis and a surge in popularity for the far-right FN.
And with France’s neighbours across the Channel winning negotiations with Brussels, many French voters are asking why their government cannot do the same.
In a University of Edinburgh survey of 8,000 voters in Germany, France, Poland, Ireland, Spain and Sweden, France was the only country where a majority said they would back holding a UK-style EU referendum.
But France is not the first European country where voters are demanding their own chance to leave the EU, with both the Netherlands and the Czech Republic saying they want to follow Britain in holding an in-out referendum.