By James Coomarasamy BBC Paris correspondent

Seven years ago many saw what they believed was the dawn of a brave new Gaullist world in France.

I cannot understand when people tell me that Chirac is going to be re-elected

Female voter

Jacques Chirac had beaten his left-wing rival, Lionel Jospin, in France's presidential election and had pledged to be leader of all the French.

His big idea was to heal what he had labelled the country's social fracture.

But two years later the healer turned destroyer, taking a decision which would damage his presidency and possibly the post itself.

Bad call

He called parliamentary elections nearly a year early, and badly miscalculated the mood of his country.

When the right lost, Mr Chirac ushered in France's longest period of political power sharing between a socialist government and a right-wing president.

Elizabeth II: the presidential role model?

On the surface this five-year period of cohabitation with Lionel Jospin's government has been relatively argument free.

But behind the scenes it's been a different story.

Catherine Trautmann, Mr Jospin's former culture minister and spokesperson, says covert war was waged during the weekly meetings between the government and the president.

"It was a sort of masked battle," she said.

Monarchic weakness

And while Mr Chirac has remained the ceremonial, diplomatic face of France, his real power has diminished at home.

It was a sort of masked battle

Catherine Trautmann Former Culture Minister

The longer cohabitation has lasted, the clearer it has become to the French that it's the prime minister who has been running the country, not Mr Chirac.

"I'm surprised that most of the people still think that he has a kind of prestige," said one woman. " I cannot understand and I'm surprised when people tell me that he is going to be re-elected."

Co-habitation has altered the French perception of the power of a president, according to Claude Askolovitch, one of Mr Jospin's biographers.

"Basically you can win the presidential election but if your party loses parliamentary elections, why it's useless," she said, comparing the role with that of British monarch Elizabeth II, whose powers are very limited.

"Jacques Chirac has been for five years a very handsome, nice, sympathetic, outspoken Elizabeth II."

Inextricably linked

However, much as the two rivals would like to distance themselves from each other, they are, after five years of cohabiting, linked in many people's minds.

Third man Chevenement could be in with a chance

According to political analyst Laurent Joffrin, this could lead to a few surprises during the ballot.

"There is a frustration about this couple who are said to be responsible for what has happened in France," he said. "So this frustration can lead to abstention or to a vote in favour of one of the small candidates."

He suggested Jean-Pierre Chevenement, the former socialist minister and current third man in the opinion polls, could be particularly likely to benefit from cohabitation fatigue.

But cohabitation could soon disappear from view if the French elect a government of the same political colour as their president in June's legislative election.

In many ways it is that vote which will decide whether the Elysee Palace becomes more like Britain's royalty than it already is.