Jacques Chirac

, founder of the centre-right (and Gaullist in origin) Rally for the Republic party, was first elected president in May 1995. From 1997 to 2002 he “cohabited” with Lionel Jospin, the Socialist prime minister. Mr Chirac easily won the final round of the 2002 presidential elections against Jean-Marie Le Pen of the anti- immigrant National Front party in May, and in June his centre-right coalition won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections.

The plans of Mr Chirac and his prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, include cutting income tax, making the 35-hour week more flexible and building new prisons to combat crime. This has not made them popular: Mr Raffarin’s proposals to reform public-sector pensions were met by public opposition and strikes in May and June 2003, and in March 2004, France largely voted Socialist in regional elections.

Mr Chirac is better known for setting his country’s foreign policy. In 2003 he allied with



Gerhard Schroeder (while quarreling with



Tony Blair and angering



George Bush) on issues such as EU agricultural subsidies and Iraq. But Mr Chirac and the European Commission rarely agree, especially on the subject of France's budget deficits. Mr Chirac visited Algeria, France‘s former colony, in March 2003, but later came under fire from Muslim countries for backing a proposed ban on headscarves in French schools.