President Jacques Chirac saw the Paris Hotel de Ville slipping from the grasp of his Gaullist RPR party, so he has finally agreed to the candidacy of the man he calls l'Emmerdeur - an impolite version of "troublemaker".
Although he distrusts him, Mr Chirac believes that Mr Philippe Seguin, who yesterday announced his candidacy for the Paris mayor's office, is best placed to win.
Mr Seguin's scheduled visit to the Elysee Palace tomorrow is interpreted as conferring the President's blessing.
It will be Mr Chirac's and Mr Seguin's first meeting in a year. Mr Seguin, a frank-speaking, ill-tempered but charismatic politician, resigned as leader of the RPR in April 1999 - in the midst of the European Parliament campaign - saying that the RPR had to become "more than a fan club for one man [Mr Chirac]". It was Mr Chirac who founded the party in 1976, and Mr Chirac who conquered the Paris town hall for the Gaullists the following year, turning it into a launching pad for the presidency.
Municipal elections will not take place until March 2001, but the Paris contest has become the stage where the right plays out its squabbles. The result of the poll "depends less on competition from the left than on our ability to master our own demons", Mr Seguin wrote yesterday to Ms Michele Alliot-Marie, who replaced him as the RPR leader. "The challenge is exceptionally difficult", he admitted, "but I have resolved to meet it".
As usual, the French left has been better organised and more united than the right. One of two socialist candidates for Paris, Mr Jack Lang, dropped out of the race to become Education Minister on Monday. The other, Mr Bertrand Delanoe, was to become the official candidate for the left last night.
By contrast, the right has four candidates, all of them unpalatable choices for Mr Chirac. The present Gaullist mayor, Mr Jean Tiberi, has been found guilty of vote-rigging by the Constitutional Council. His wife, Xaviere, escaped being convicted of corruption on a technicality, and Mr Tiberi was this month removed from the RPR's local leadership for padding membership lists.
Mr Chirac likes Ms Francoise de Panafieu, a Paris councillor and member of the National Assembly who won notoriety when Mr Tiberi fired her on March 6th. But the President does not believe she can win.
That leaves Mr Seguin and the former Gaullist prime minister, Mr Edouard Balladur. Although not officially a candidate, Mr Balladur yesterday announced eight measures he would take if elected mayor of Paris. Mr Chirac holds a deep grudge against Mr Balladur for challenging him in the 1995 presidential election, and Elysee advisers unkindly point out that he is 70 years old.
