FRANCE: The euphoria of last night's champagne celebrations at Mr Jacques Chirac's campaign headquarters is unlikely to linger much beyond the early hours of this morning: rarely has a newly-elected French president faced such an uncertain and obstacle-strewn first 100 days, writes Jon Henley from Paris.
Mr Chirac starts his five-year term unsure how much real support he has, uncertain of being able to put his programme into practice and unconfident of his future in a France shaken to its political roots.
The president's first problem - and one he will have difficulty escaping throughout his tenure - is that he will never know just how many of the 33.5 million people who turned out yesterday actually voted for him, as opposed to casting their ballot against Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen.
"Sadly for him, he wouldn't have had a real mandate no matter how high he scored," said one EU diplomat last night. "His re-election wasn't about him being re-elected, it was about shutting the door on Le Pen. By rights, Chirac shouldn't be able to claim any endorsement of either himself or his programme from it."
After 40 years in French politics, the battle-hardened Mr Chirac (69) is unlikely to take that view, at least in public. But the fact remains that the bizarre circumstances of his re-election - in which even his most bitter foes campaigned for his victory - will further weaken a credibility dented by unanswered sleaze allegations and an all but non-existent record from his first seven years in office.
More concretely, Mr Chirac will not know until June 16th whether he will be able to implement his election pledges to crack down dramatically on crime, cut taxes and bolster business performance.
That will depend on whether the French right, led by the president's RPR party, manage to land a majority in the National Assembly after next month's two-round general election.
However he decides to solve the issue of his non-traditional voters,Mr Chirac will also face the problem of defusing those who voted for Mr Le Pen and who feel unhappy that their candidate's democratic advance to the second round was greeted with a deafening campaign labelling his supporters Nazis, fascists, racists and the Republic's worst enemies.
Those voters are only likely to have been more reinforced in their views over the past week or two. If, as in 1997, that ends up splitting the right-wing vote and seeing a left-wing parliament elected, Mr Chirac's second term in office will effectively be over almost before it has begun.