- guardian.co.uk, Sunday April 7 2002 02.45 BST
The polls are split on whether the Gaullist President Chirac or his Socialist Prime Minister Jospin has a narrow lead before the first round of voting on 21 April.
Jospin said Chirac was ready to risk the stability of the euro to stay at the Elysée. The Prime Minister was 'staggered and shocked' by the President's claim that a balanced national budget by 2004 - essential to currency stability - was not an obligation.
The Socialists have accused Chirac's camp of lying over EU commitments at the recent Barcelona summit to justify proposals for big tax cuts, but the Gaullists said the Prime Minister was playing a double game and intended to raise taxes because his economic policy was in shreds.
International concern over Chirac's promises to slash income and business levies has shaken the European Central Bank. Its chairman, Wim Duisenberg, has backed Jospin by saying a balanced budget was 'imperative' for 2003-2004 - a comment seenas indirect criticism of the President's fiscal programme.
Chirac accused Jospin of stirring up 'underhand' polemic, while Jospin's team said the President was displaying 'incredible dishonesty'.
The two contenders set off for different islands over the weekend - Jospin to Corsica and Chirac to the French West Indies - after a week in which the Prime Minister gave a convincing performance in his first dress rehearsal as the probable next President. Jospin, 64, took the stage at his campaign base against the background of a fluttering tricolour and boldly invaded 69-year-old Chirac's territory, foreign policy.
Except for a plan to send peacekeeping troops to Palestine ('Hey, I thought of that first', Chirac complained), the substance of Jospin's speech was less important than the presentation. Foreign affairs, where Jospin has walked several steps behind the President for five years, was his original passion. His first civil service job, 36 years ago, was at the French foreign office, and he tried to return there in 1995 before being vetoed by the then Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, Chirac's right-hand man in this campaign.
With polls giving Jospin a 52-48 lead, this failure to squeeze him from the mainstream could be Chirac's biggest error: by now Jospin might have been the ambassador to Mali or Mongolia.
