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In France's 1995 presidential election, PM Edouard Balladur lost the right's runoff slot to Jacques Chirac by 700,000 votes, or just under 3%. Balladur had led in the polls until Chirac started criticizing Balladur for being outside the centrist political consensus, which was undoubtedly true. Let's say that Balladur keeps things less specific and ekes out a victory over Chirac in the first round. If he defeats Jospin in the second round, what would his presidency look like? Undoubtedly there will be major controversy, labor unrest and tanking poll numbers as happened in 1995 IOTL. Except here there would likely be no U-turn. The PS will be completely obstructionist and even parts of the right will be uneasy. How much can he get through? Let's say because of his age he doesn't run again in 2002, though probably his numbers will have improved during the latter half of his term. Does Balladur quit the RPR and try to form a party of likeminded politicians called the Parti Libéral, or go what I suspect is a fruitless route of forcibly converting the UDR to his economic ideology?
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