EUROTUNNEL’S directors were on tenterhooks last night, not knowing whether enough proxy votes had been registered for them to survive a vote of no confidence at tomorrow’s annual meeting.

With as many as 5,000 independent shareholders expected to descend on a Paris conference venue near Charles de Gaulle Airport, the Eurotunnel directors are braced for an unprecedented attempt by shareholders to oust a sitting management team.

Credit Agricole Indosuez was last night counting the proxy votes but refused to disclose any details of the forms that had been returned by the 4 pm deadline.

Returning a blank proxy vote effectively endorses the status quo and is a vote for the current management. However, tomorrow’s showdown between directors and shareholders can proceed only if investors representing 25 per cent or more of the capital vote.

Shareholders must decide whether to back the company’s board or choose a rival team of executives backed by rebel investors.

The British management of the Anglo-French company is competing against a coalition led by Jacques Maillot, former head of the travel group Nouvelles Frontières, and a loosely knit association of small shareholders.

Adacte, the shareholders’ association, won an unprecedented court ruling last December that authorised a general assembly to consider sacking all members of the board of directors. Eurotunnel’s hundreds of thousands of small shareholders have struggled to get their proxy forms in by the deadline, with many arriving in the the final hours.

Nicolas Miguet, the rebel shareholder who has led the campaign against the management, led by Richard Shirrefs, the chief executive, has attacked his fellow Frenchmen, saying they were “morons” and “intellectually deficient” for returning blank proxy forms.