While celebrating landmark victories in Paris and Lyons, the French Socialists have come out of the municipal elections very much on the defensive. The euphoria of victory in Paris, now to be run by the left for the first time since the Paris Commune in 1871, has been tempered by large-scale successes for the centre-right throughout the country.
Even within Paris itself, the new mayor Mr Bertrand Delanoe, will depend on the support of a disparate coalition in which the Socialists will hold 49 seats with the other 43 made up of Greens, Communists, Left Radicals and supporters of the former Interior Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Chevenement.
President Chirac's favoured candidate, Mr Philippe Seguin, has blamed his defeat on an "iniquitous voting system" and has claimed victory in the popular vote. Despite all this, Mr Delanoe and his supporters achieved a remarkable success by holding on to the six arrondissements won in 1995 and concentrating their efforts on swing sectors elsewhere to gain control of the city.
As Mayor of Paris, Mr Delanoe's rule will run directly only in the central city with its 2.5 million inhabitants. He will, however, exert considerable influence in the Ile de France region which makes up the Greater Paris area. His win will, moreover, put the Socialists into a position of stronger national significance. His party will now, with the Prime Ministership and the Mayoralty of Paris, hold two of the highest profile political positions in France.
In this respect, the result is a bad personal blow for President Chirac in the run-up to next year's presidential and parliamentary elections. Mr Chirac built his power base in Paris where he was mayor for 18 years and paid strong personal attention to the elections there.
The vote in Lyons, governed by the right for almost a century, was an encouraging one for democratic politics in that the electorate showed its disdain for those who have any connection with the extreme right. Voters there turned on the right-of-centre candidate, Mr Charles Millon, for having entered an expedient alliance with the National Front in 1998, and elected the socialist candidate Mr Gerard Colomb in his place.
Elsewhere in France, right-of-centre candidates from Mr Chirac's RPR party and its allies in the UDF, scored major victories. The Socialist gains in Paris and Lyons were offset by losses in 27 larger towns and cities including Strasbourg, Rouen and Orleans while the high-profile Minister for Education, Mr Jack Lang, lost his position as mayor of Blois.
The electorate has, therefore, issued warnings to both sides in advance of next year's elections. Mr Chirac, in particular, will have received a strong negative signal from the Paris result as he prepares to defend his presidency next year, probably against the current socialist Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin.
The Socialists, as a governing party, failed to get their message through and will, on the basis of the municipal results, have a difficult task in retaining parliamentary power and staying in government. Indeed, the elections have raised the prospect of a new cohabitation between a Socialist president and a government led by a right-of-centre prime minister.