ABSTRACT
The prospect of cohabitation engendered considerable anxiety, enhanced by constant discussion in the press, radio, and television. Presidential hopeful Raymond Barre announced that no good could come out of cohabitation, which would bring in two years of confusion and drift, meanwhile eroding the strong presidential institutions of the Fifth Republic. Chirac was long uncertain whether he should head a government of cohabitation, often repeating when asked if he would become prime minister, "I've done that already," In May 1985 he told a radio interviewer that he had no intention of taking the job, and no vocation for it. Cohabitation was a political necessity. Cohabitation had always been understood as a transition, an interval before the next presidential election. Cohabitation was defined by their several needs, reciprocal yet antagonistic. The president's popularity as the great cohabiter held steady throughout 1987, reaching the heights attained in early 1982 before disappointment had set in.
