We present Integral Field Spectroscopy of the 9 ^ { \prime \prime } \times 12 ^ { \prime \prime } circumnuclear region of M 32 obtained with the 2D_FIS fibre spectrograph installed at the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope .
From these spectra line strength maps have been made for about 20 absorption lines , mostly belonging to the Lick system .
We have found good agreement with long-slit line strength profiles in the literature .
We find no radial gradients in the azimuthally averaged absorption line indices .
We have fitted the mean values of each spectral index and colours from the literature for the inner regions of M 32 to the models of Vazdekis et al .
( 1996 ) and Worthey ( 1994 ) finding present data can be well interpreted for a single stellar population of an intermediate age ( \sim 4 Gyr ) and a metallicity similar to solar ( Z=0.02 ) .