FRESH question marks were raised yesterday over the future of the embattled French Prime Minister, Mr Alain Juppe, as a new opinion poll showed left and right-wing blocs running virtually neck and neck two weeks before the first round of parliamentary elections.
At the half-way point in the race, speculation was fuelled over Mr Juppe's political future, notably by a former president, Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing.
The French people "want to be governed differently", said Mr Giscard, former head of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), the junior partner in the ruling coalition led by Mr Juppe's Rally for the Republic (RPR).
"Whatever choice he [President Chirac] makes he must do it taking into account what the French people say," Mr Giscard said.
Meanwhile, the IPSOS polling institute predicted that the RPR/ UDF bloc would win 290 seats - only one more than an absolute majority. The left-wing alliance of Socialists and Communists would win 286 seats between them, the survey said.
President Chirac, claiming he needed a renewed mandate to lead France into the single currency, dissolved parliament on April 21st, calling two-round elections 10 months ahead of schedule for May 25th and June 1st.
Critics claimed the dissolution was purely for Mr Chirac's own political ends, that he would have had even more severe problems securing the re-election of a compatible right-wing government next year.
Speculation over whether Mr Chirac will dump his effective but unpopular Prime Minister has surfaced repeatedly in recent weeks, not least after Mr Juppe himself declared that he was "not a candidate to succeed myself" two weeks ago.
"The next prime minister will be Philippe Seguin or Edouard Balladur," said RPR heavyweight Mr Bernard Debre yesterday in a newspaper interview explaining what he would like to tell potential voters on the streets.
Mr Seguin is a former parliamentary speaker, while Mr Balladur is a former prime minister.
Despite the splits within the centre-right over Mr Juppe's future, most analysts claim Mr Chirac plans to keep his Prime Minister but is content to allow voters to believe they might get a new prime minister if the centre-right is re-elected.
The French Socialist Party (PS) leader, Mr Lionel Jospin, is campaigning with the warning that a centre-right victory would mean "five more years of Juppe", knowing that even right-leaning voters might be put off by that prospect.
Mr Jospin is expected to publish an open letter in the French provincial press today in reply to a damning criticism of the left's past record by Mr Chirac in the same papers on Wednesday.
In another strike yesterday, Mr Juppe challenged the Socialist leader to answer four questions about his party's policies if it were to win power with its allies, the Communists and the Greens.
These were: how would the PS avoid a "crisis on Europe" if the anti-Maastricht Communists were to join a government? Would the PS have to raise taxes massively? How would it stop a huge new influx of illegal immigrants if it repealed existing anti-immigrant legislation? And would it veto any further privatisation of state-held assets?
Mr Jospin said yesterday he would reply to each of Mr Juppe's questions, although not necessarily in his open letter in today's papers.
Mr Chirac meanwhile stayed above the political fray yesterday, taking centre-stage at a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe to celebrate the anniversary of the Nazi defeat in 1945.