Copenhagen  - Danes have expressed doubts over how long the marriage between French-born Marie Cavallier and Danish Prince Joachim will last, reports said Friday.

The couple were to tie the knot on Saturday at Mogeltonder church in southern Jutland, near the prince's estate Schakenborg Manor.

A survey conducted by Capacent Epinion suggested that almost four in 10 Danes said they see a divorce looming.

Only one in five believed that the marriage would last until "death do them part," the survey commissioned by free newspaper Urban said.

Prince Joachim, 38, youngest son of Queen Margrethe, divorced Hong Kong-born Alexandra Manley in April 2005. She has since remarried but they have joint custody of their sons Nikolai and Felix.

Psychotherapist Martin Ostergaard, specialized in marriage counselling, said there was no reason to doubt their sentiments.

Oastergaard said it was "far from certain that Joachim will be divorced again. There are many recommendations for a good marriage but no truths, so they can start by enjoying their love and take some long holidays together."

A separate survey, also commissioned by Urban, underlined that Cavallier, 32, should try to master the Danish language.

In all 60 per cent of 1,695 people polled said the main language at the Schakenborg Manor should be Danish.

Some 72 per cent of those polled said it was important that the new Danish princess masters Danish, saying they doubted Joachim's French-born father, Prince Henrik, was sufficiently versed in Danish.

Linguistics professor Jakob Steensig at Aarhus University disagreed.

"Prince Henrik has a very large Danish vocabulary and speaks grammatically well," Steensig said, adding that speaking with an accent is often mistaken as a sign of poor language skills.

Steensig said Danish is "one of the most difficult languages in the world for adults to learn since the pronunciation is unclear and there is a big difference between the written and spoken language."

In his view, the princess should be allowed to speak whatever language she was most comfortable with at home and "also to the children that may come," Steensig said. (dpa)