THE French Prime Minister, Mr Alain Juppe, announced yesterday he will resign on the evening of June 1st, when the second round of parliamentary elections is completed.
Speaking one day alter the opposition Socialists and Communists established a lead of nearly eight percentage points over the ruling centre right coalition in the first round of voting, Mr Juppe said a new team "animated by a new prime minister" was needed.
If the centre right wins on Sunday, the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, is considering three replacements for Mr Juppe. They are Mr Philippe Seguin, the popular outgoing speaker of parliament; the former Prime Minister, Mr Edouard Balladur, who fought Mr Chirac for the presidential nomination in 1995; and Mr Alain Madelin, the former finance minister, who is France's most vocal advocate of economic liberalism.
Mr Seguin is the most likely choice, partly because he and Mr Chirac get on well. When he served as prime minister from 1993 until 1995, Mr Balladur was caricatured as haughty and aristocratic. Mr Madelin is considered brilliant, but his free market beliefs irritate French voters who are deeply attached to their welfare system.
Because Mr Juppe embodied a continuation of the same government policies, the centreright's election slogan of "a new elan" was unconvincing.
It is unprecedented for a prime minister to resign during an election campaign, and it is not clear what role Mr Juppe will play in his final week in office. The right hopes his announced departure will provide a psychological shock and rally centreright voters. A spokesman for the Socialists said it indicated "improvisation and panic".
When he was elected in May 1995, Mr Chirac chose Mr Juppe, a loyal aide for 20 years, as his Prime Minister. Six months later, the government renounced campaign promises to heal France's fracture sociale and initiated unpopular austerity programmes.
Mr Juppe said he found French public finances in a calamitous" state when he came to office. Yesterday morning in Bordeaux, he gave an inkling of the bitterness he has felt at the failure of the people to support his policies. "If the only obstacle to the modernisation and renovation of France is a question of persons, I am sure the President will make the right choice," he said.
President Chirac is scheduled to make an address on French television tonight. His speech can be viewed on TV5.
French voters who were called to the polls on Sunday punished Mr Juppe and President Chirac in every way possible.
More than 31 per cent of voters stayed home - a near record. The abstention rate was seven percentage points higher than the score reached by the frontrunning Socialist Party.
Dozens of tiny political parties and independent candidates with no hope of winning seats in parliament received nearly 19 per cent of the vote.
In addition, 15 per cent cast their ballots for the extreme right National Front.
