Chirac addresses the nation

Chirac Warns of Return to Socialism

The president said he had understood the message delivered by voters in the first round of the French elections, in which voters gave the combined left-wing opposition an unexpected lead.

"Let us take care not to compromise everything at the moment when we are reaping the first fruits of our efforts," said Mr Chirac.

"Do you really want to put the socialist ideas of yesteryear back in the saddle?," he asked. "I hope the majority which you will choose does not take the risk of weakening European integration."

Mr Chirac paid tribute to his fellow Gaullist Prime Minister Alain Juppe, who announced on Monday he would resign whatever the outcome of next Sunday's decisive runoff ballot. But he gave no indication of his replacement.

Juppe: Unpopular PM

Earlier Mr Juppe said his resignation might help his party win the general election.

He said victory for the centre-right was "probable" in the second round for the National Assembly on June 1 but that a win by the Socialists and Communists was "possible". The left won the first round on May 25.

Mr Juppe, who took the blame for the centre-right defeat, is deeply unpopular because of high unemployment, austere economic policies introduced to help France qualify for a single European currency, and his technocratic style.

"I'm proud to have taken part in this important task of recovery," he said. "But now a new future is opening up, a new stage, a new prime minister."

Speculation about who might replace Juppe centres on the former Premier Edouard Balladur and Philippe Seguin, the former speaker of Parliament, who is cool on European union.

The Prime Minister told a French newspaper that he hoped his resignation would lure back voters who abstained on the first round.

Mr Juppe said that opposition Socialist leader Lionel Jospin was misleading voters by saying he would not raise taxes with his plans to create 700,000 jobs and to cut the working week from 39 hours to 35 with no loss of pay.

He said the ruling coalition would maintain candidates in three-way runoff races against the anti-immigrant far-right National Front wherever their candidate had a chance of victory.

Under an informal pact, the mainstream left or right pulls out candidates where the other has a better chance of winning in districts where there is a threat of a win by the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen, which currently has no seats.

In cases of runoffs where the National Front and a mainstream left candidate were contesting a seat with no centre-right candidate, Mr Juppe gave an indirect call to vote for the left, saying voters should examine underlying values of humanism and tolerance before voting.