PRESIDENT Jacques Chirac suffered a new blow in the polls yesterday as he sought to boost his embattled government's chances in upcoming ballots in which the ruling centre-right coalition is struggling.
As Mr Chirac prepared to make a direct appeal to voters on the second anniversary of his own election today, a poll indicated that 65 per cent of the French electorate is unhappy with his record.
The score, two years to the day alter Mr Chirac came to power pledging a new era for France, was the worst such rating of any recent French president, including Mr Francois Mitterrand and Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing.
While 54 per cent gave him the thumbs-down on running the economy, no fewer than 87 per cent condemned the government's fight against France's record post-war 12.8 per cent unemployment figure, according to the Sofres poll.
Mr Chirac is due to publish an open letter to the French electorate in 14 regional newspapers today.
The intervention came as polls indicate the French left is narrowing the gap on the ruling Rally for the Republic (RPR) and Union for French Democracy (UDF) in the race for elections scheduled for May 25th and June 1st.
The Gaullist President called the snap elections on April 21st, saying he needed a fresh mandate to continue state-shrinking reforms. Polls initially gave the centre-rigbt a comfortable victory in the 577-seat National Assembly, in which it previously controlled 80 per cent of the seats, predicting a majority of up to 100.
But a clutch of polls over the last three days have put the lead at down to 14 seats, with some indicating that the Socialist Party (PS) and its communist and Green allies have edged ahead in terms of share of votes, although not necessarily in the number of seats due to France's two-round voting system.
The French poll race was over-shadowed for the first two weeks by the ballots in Britain. Both French left and right have sought to interpret Mr Tony Blair's victory for their own ends; the right saying it showed up how French Socialists had not changed, and the left predicting a "socialist springtime" in Europe.