France Sees Rate Drop as Good News for Unity : Europe: Germany’s financial move could help chances for approval of the Maastricht Treaty.

PARIS — Nowhere was Monday’s decision by the German Bundesbank to lower interest rates more welcome than in France, where it was widely viewed as an important boost for ratification of the Maastricht Treaty on European union, to be decided in a critical national referendum this Sunday.

The Paris stock exchange rallied strongly in the wake of the German announcement; prices rose by nearly 4% by the end of trading.

Only six days before the make-or-break test for the treaty, which is a blueprint for European political and economic union that 12 European Community leaders signed last December, public opinion polls showed the French vote to be very close, with supporters of ratification holding a slight edge.

Government officials pushing for the treaty’s ratification jumped Monday to take political advantage of the German interest rate decision. Prime Minister Pierre Beregovoy portrayed the move as a goodwill signal to French voters from the Bonn government and German central bankers, praising the Germans for “putting the interests of Europe ahead of their own.”

“The spirit of Maastricht won over purely national considerations,” he said during an interview on French Radio.

A spokesman for the Assn. Francaise des Banques, the main banking body, saluted the “effort at unity shown by the German monetary authorities.”

But Beregovoy warned that France might not join Germany and other European countries in lowering its own interest rates unless the Maastricht Treaty is approved Sunday.

“It will be easier to do after Sept. 20 than before,” he said.

In the politically charged atmosphere on the eve of the important vote, that announcement was tantamount to a threat that the Banque de France will not lower interest rates if the “no” votes carry the day Sunday.

“I don’t want to deceive the French,” Beregovoy said, “but if the ‘no’ voters win, there will be a monetary and stock market jolt.”

Finance Minister Michel Sapin predicted that lower interest rates would mean more investment and employment in recession-plagued France, which has more than 3 million unemployed.

Added Sapin: “I’ve said for a long time that if France votes ‘yes,’ there will be a lowering of interest rates.”

“It would be rude to say there is a bribe out there for the electorate,” said John Shepperd, a senior economist at S. G. Warburg Securities in London, “but this does seem to be a ploy by the government for ‘yes’ votes.”

In its Monday afternoon editions, the influential newspaper Le Monde described the German interest rate adjustment as a “vote for Maastricht.”

A cartoon on the newspaper’s front page showed the huge figure of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl looming over a voting booth in which a French voter is nervously making his choice.

“I lowered my interest rate,” Kohl tells the surprised voter in the caption. “That’s friendly, isn’t it?”

Times staff writer Joel Havemann, in Brussels, also contributed to this report.