ABSTRACT
The re-election of Jacques Chirac as President in 2002 and the victory of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) in the subsequent parliamentary election marked the start of a new period of coordinated executive rule after five years of cohabitation between a President of the right and a government of the ‘plural left’ led by Lionel Jospin. The appointment of Jean-Pierre Raffarin as Prime Minister symbolized the start of a new phase in Chirac’s presidential tenure. Yet, despite an auspicious beginning, Raffarin’s premiership has in many respects failed to live up to the expectations of the President, UMP deputies and militants, and that section of the electorate which voted for the moderate right in 2002.
