By Henri Astier BBC News Online

In the first round of the ballot, battered by sleaze scandals that earned him the nickname Superliar, he scored under 20% - less than any French president since 1958.

His massive 82% in the second round was widely seen as a gift from the Socialists, whose bungled campaign left him opposed only by a right-wing extremist.

Raffarin's homeliness is an asset

But three months on, Mr Chirac is oozing energy and confidence.

Freed from the shackles of "cohabitation" with a left-wing prime minister, the centre-right president now commands huge majorities in both houses of parliament.

He has unleashed a legislative blitzkrieg aimed at fixing the country's main ills - from crime to unemployment and high taxes - leaving a dazed opposition unsure how to respond.

Ordinary man

In retrospect, the first sign of "Superliar" turning into "Superchirac" was his behaviour at a football cup final shortly after his re-election.

When supporters of a Corsican team booed the national anthem, the president stormed off to tell TV cameras that he would not "tolerate the undermining of the values of the Republic". The French loved it.

The June legislative elections sealed Chirac's triumph

Mr Chirac also scored a major success with his choice as interim prime minister of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a little-known provincial politician who won the trust of voters fed up with sharp-suited members of the Paris elite.

A ringing endorsement in the parliamentary election, paved the way for special summer session of parliament where popular law-and-order measures topped the agenda.

A new crime law was rushed through, giving police extra cash and powers.

The government is putting more police on the beat

Among other measures, the media-savvy Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, has promised legislation to expel foreign prostitutes, and a reform of the justice system foresees new "closed educational centres" for teenage offenders.

The opposition socialists have voiced only muted objections.

In the pipeline is a raft of initiatives, including lowering taxes, streamlining the unreformed public sector, making pensions sustainable, fixing local government, and fighting poverty.

As if that was not enough, within hours of surviving a Bastille Day assassination attempt, Mr Chirac came up with three new "priorities": help for the disabled, roads safety, and cancer research.

Jacques Chirac is on a roll, can there be any stopping him?

Actually, there could be.

All French governments live in terror of street protests, and this presidential steamroller could also, in principle, be stopped in its tracks.

Resistance

In 1995 Mr Chirac's first prime minister tried to reduce the pension privileges enjoyed the public-sector workers - such as train drivers retiring on full pension at 50 - but the plan was ditched following crippling strikes and mass demonstrations.

Delinquents terrorising people and pimps bringing in Ukrainian prostitutes are not the only ones who violate the criminal code

Jean-Francois Revel

In 2000, a more modest attempt by the then Socialist government to reform the overstaffed Finance Ministry met with a similar ignominious fate after a revolt by employees.

In domestic policy, ministers have so far carefully avoided confrontation with powerful vested interests - but this day must come, and it is too early to say whether Mr Chirac will be more successful than his predecessors.

Mr Chirac has highlighted tax cuts - which are popular - but not reduction in public spending - which bring people out on the street.

Yet economists point out that France's main problem is out-of-control spending - which accounts for 52% of GDP, as against a EU average of 45%.

Getting this figure down is necessary, but it will inevitably be painful.

A French government's worst fear

Mr Sarkozy's security bill - which focuses on street crime by popular demand - could also ruffle feathers.

"Delinquents terrorising people and pimps bringing in Ukrainian prostitutes are not the only ones who violate the criminal code," political analyst Jean-Francois Revel told BBC News Online.

The farmers who regularly smash property and attack foreign trucks break both French law and European treaties, he pointed out.

"It remains to be seen whether the government will act against them," Mr Revel says.

The problem for any French Government trying to face down special interests is that it has no popular mandate to do so.

Opinion surveys have shown that rioting farmers and striking public workers are not seen as self-interested lobbies but as doughty heroes.

Mr Chirac is now popular president. But he may eventually have to choose between popularity and meaningful change.