Chirac vague on future; polls indicate he has none.

Byline: Tom Hundley

PARIS _ Will he or won't he?

Jacques Chirac is being coy, but political professionals say there is virtually no chance the French president will seek a third five-year term.

His age (74), his vigor (declining) and his approval ratings (in the tank) militate against it.

One recent survey indicated that 81 percent of the French electorate want him to stay out of this spring's race. And his party, the center-right Union for a Popular Movement, already has chosen Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy as its candidate.

So why has Chirac refused to definitively rule out a run? Why has he kept everyone, including his wife, guessing?

Most analysts believe it is an attempt to ward off for as long as possible the perception that he is a lame-duck president.

"I could understand that position a year ago, but today it's absurd. He looks totally ridiculous," said Guillaume Parmentier, director of CART, a Paris research institute.

In the opinion of many French, Chirac's presidency effectively collapsed in May 2005 when he backed the new European Union constitution only to have French voters reject it by a wide margin in a referendum.

Later that summer, Paris was considered the heavy favorite in the race to capture the 2012 Olympic Games, but it saw London walk away with the prize. The defeat snatched from the jaws of victory seemed to capture the sagging national fortunes under Chirac.

In the highly abnormal election of 2002, Chirac managed to rally an overwhelming majority of his countrymen _ 82 percent _ to his side to defeat far-right challenger Jean-Marie Le Pen, but he quickly let the huge mandate slip away.

"He should have had a big conference on social protections or a big conference on the economy. Instead, he did nothing," said Parmentier. "He showed he was just another politician who didn't want to take risks."

In September 2005, Chirac suffered what turned out to be a minor stroke, but the Elysee Palace's secrecy concerning the president's health fanned speculation that the situation was more serious. A month later, when Arab and African youths from the dreary housing projects on the outskirts of the country's urban centers went on a three-week rampage, Chirac was nearly invisible.

It has been a long fall for a leader whose international prominence peaked in the 2003 run-up to U.S. war in Iraq when he threatened a veto at the United Nations to block the invasion. The veto was not used when it became clear that the Bush administration intended to invade Iraq with or without U.N. approval, but Chirac's domestic approval topped 80 percent.

It has since sagged spectacularly, bottoming out around 17 percent last May.

As British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been learning in recent months, it is hard for a long-established leader to know when to say when.

Like Blair, Chirac now seems to be fishing around for some great idea or noble cause that he can latch onto during his final months in office so he can exit on a high note. For Blair, it's the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Chirac has lately been talking a lot about the environment.

By refusing to declare his intentions, Chirac may be trying to play for time, hoping that some cataclysmic event will rally voters to his side. More likely, he is doing it to make Sarkozy, his former protege and now bitter enemy, anxious.

Chirac could run as an independent. All he would need to do is collect 500 signatures and declare his intentions by mid-March. But his chances of doing anything more than fragmenting the vote on the right and causing ill will within his party are nil.

"I'm sure he would be beaten in the first round," said Bruno Jeanbart, a political analyst with OpinionWay, a polling organization.

After 12 years of Chirac, France is in the mood for a significant break with the past, said Jeanbart. With Sarkozy, 51, and Socialist Party candidate Segolene Royal, 53, the first woman with a serious chance of winning the presidency, French voters have a choice between two young and attractive options.

"You look at Chirac, and he seems very old," Jeanbart said.

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An announcement from the Elysee Palace could come any day, but in the meantime Chirac appears determined to keep France guessing.

In his annual New Year's speech, he sounded very much like a candidate when he brushed off reporters' questions about his intentions and urged his countrymen to vote for the person, not the party. But a few days later, he was busy appointing a political crony to a choice sinecure, a move that was widely interpreted as taking care of his pals before his time was up.

Even Bernadette Chirac said she does not know her husband's intentions.

"My husband will make his decision all by himself," she said in an interview on French television. "He will announce it when the time comes and tell me the day before."

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