(PARIS) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will go to Dublin Monday to hear Irish voters' concerns about the EU reform treaty they rejected and not to teach them any lessons, his foreign minister said.

"The aim of the trip is to listen to the Irish," Bernard Kouchner, who will travel to Ireland with Sarkozy, told reporters Friday. "The intention is not to teach them any lessons" nor to "convince them to vote again."

Kouchner miffed Irish treaty opponents when he warned ahead of the referendum in June that Ireland would pay a high price for turning its back on the charter.

Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has set a deadline of the end of this year to overcome the impasse over Ireland's rejection of Europe's new charter.

The Dublin visit comes amid much brouhaha over remarks Sarkozy made during a behind-closed-doors meeting with French lawmakers this week in which he declared that the Irish would have to vote again.

After deputies present at the meeting repeated his comments, which were later splashed across the front pages of Irish newspapers, presidential aides stressed they were taken out of context and that a re-vote was only one of several possible scenarios.

"This is obviously one of the options," said Sarkozy's special adviser Henri Guaino. But Sarkozy "is not going to Ireland to tell them what to do."

"We will take time to reflect, the Europeans will reflect and then we will make proposals. It is the Irish government which ultimately will decide about what to do," Guaino told France 24 television.

After holding talks with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, Sarkozy will meet with activists from both camps who campaigned in the June 12 referendum in which 53 percent voted 'No'.

No breakthroughs are expected on Monday, with both French and Irish diplomats stressing that Ireland needs time to consider its next move.

Ireland was the only country to put the treaty to a public referendum.

Designed to streamline decision-making in the enlarged EU, the Lisbon treaty must be ratified by all 27 EU member states to come into effect.

Conscious of Irish sensitivities, the Elysee has described Sarkozy's visit as a listening exercise and sought to dispel concerns that he will be showing up with a pre-cooked solution.

His meeting with campaigners from both sides at the French embassy will be closed to the press, an event scaled back from an initial plan to hold an open discussion hosted by the National Forum for Europe, a national organisation.

The president will spend about six hours in Dublin.

"Sarkozy is going to try to calm the situation and see what the Irish want," said Philippe Moreau Desfarges, an expert with the French Institute for International Affairs.

"At this point, he is more concerned with solving the problem with the other countries that haven't ratified," he said.

"Once all the 26 others have ratified, he can then turn to the Irish and say 'now you're the problem child and you have to go along'."

Aside from Ireland, parliaments in the Czech Republic, Sweden and Italy have yet to ratify while Polish President Lech Kaczynski has yet to sign the ratification.

To get Ireland on board, France could offer to maintain the size of the European Commission at 27 -- under the Lisbon Treaty the number would be reduced -- and reassure Ireland that it will have a say in Brussels, Le Monde reported this week.

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