Final curtain for Chirac?

French papers agree that all eyes are on President Jacques Chirac, following the socialists' landslide victory in the last round of regional elections.

Earthquake, tidal wave and hail of gunfire are some of the metaphors used to describe the misfortunes of the president's party.

Despite the regional nature of the elections, the outcome - described by the leading daily Le Monde as "The collapse of the Right" - is seen as a nationwide vote of censure against unpopular economic reforms.

The paper speaks of "a tidal wave of bitter defeat" for a number of conservative heavyweights in their own fiefdoms, including Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin in Poitou-Charentes and former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing in the Auvergne.

Wipe-out for the Right, triumph for the Left Le Figaro

Everyone, it says, is looking to Mr Chirac for the next move.

"The fate of the entire government and, above all, that of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, is now in the hands of the head of state," the paper says.

Carnage

"Wipe-out for the Right, triumph for the Left" is the early headline in Le Figaro, followed, in a later edition, by "The Left verges on a grand slam".

The paper identifies what it calls "a protest vote which swept away the Right from 20 of the 22 regions of mainland France".

"Sheer carnage," it says. "Giscard, Rohan, Fillon, Longuet - the flower of the French Right has been mown down in the hail of gunfire of the punishment vote."

This "electoral earthquake", it says, is even stronger than that suffered by the Left in 1992.

And it notes that the extreme right-wing party, the National Front, is to lose seats for the first time in nearly 20 years - "a victim," it says "of tactical voting".

In spite of all the signs, Raffarin did not see the rebuff coming Liberation

"For the Right," Le Figaro says, "it's a complete disaster.

"Now all eyes are on Jacques Chirac," the paper concludes.

The left-wing Liberation devotes its entire front page to a photo of a pensive-looking Mr Chirac, and underneath, the caption: "The beginning of the end".

"The disaster of 28 March, marks the beginning of the end of Chirac's reign," Liberation says. "This is Chirac's twilight. The emperor has no clothes."

The paper also takes to task France's prime minister.

"In spite of all the signs, Raffarin did not see the rebuff coming," it says. "He believed he still had the support of the Right - and was seriously mistaken."

A government reshuffle is a pressing need, Liberation believes. "Next Monday the Queen of England is arriving on an official visit and a full-strength government must be in place to meet her."

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.