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Chirac Might Run Again
Jacques Chirac's wife told reporters that the president is "in great shape" and hasn't ruled out running for a third term in April.
Bernadette Chirac said "the final word's not out" on whether or not her husband would run again. She also insisted that he remained "immensely popular" with the French people, though recent opinion polls had ranked him among the most unpopular presidents of recent years.
Most commentators believe that Chirac is not considering a third term. However, the president is known to loathe the likely centre-right candidate for the presidency, interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy. Recently, it has been rumoured that Chirac has been pushing for his chosen heir, PM Dominque de Villepin, to run against Sarkozy. Defence minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, another Chirac loyalist, is also said to be mulling over whether or not to challenge Sarkozy. However, the idea of either candidate has failed to capture the public - or the media's - attention.
Some in the ruling UMP party are also showing signs of concern that Sarkzoy's hard-line stance on crime and immigration, designed to woo far-right voters away from the Front Nationale, could backfire as youth groups and media activists seek to portray the interior minister as a threat equal to that posed by the far right.
France's opposition Socialist Party holds the first round of its vote to chose a candidate tomorrow.
