When the French talk of cohabitation in politics it tends to refer to the sharing of power between socialists and Gaullists, à la Jospin/Chirac; but perhaps the term should also be applied to the uncomfortable presence in President Chirac's government of his minister for the interior, fellow Gaullist Nicolas Sarkozy.
And so it was that Mr Sarkozy's anointing by their UMP party on Sunday as pretender to the presidency took place without Mr Chirac's endorsement, let alone presence. He is known to despise Mr Sarkozy and has suggested, somewhat unconvincingly, that he may yet stand himself, despite a poll last week reflecting a citizenry deeply jaded by his 12-year rule - 81 per cent said they do not want him to run again.
With a razzmatazz more normally expected of a US presidential candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy launched his campaign in front of more than 50,000 ecstatic supporters. The race is truly on now, 100 days from the first round, a fascinating contest between the two clear frontrunners, a man who seems to epitomise a peculiarly Gallic form of Thatcherism and a female Blair or Clinton in Socialist Ségolene Royal, whose own Third Way-lite sits as uncomfortably with many in her own party as its original did in their's.
There are others in the field, or almost there - the National Front's Jean-Marie Le Pen, the centrist pro-European François Bayrou, and probably a couple of Trotskyists and a communist - but polls suggest none has a real hope of forcing themselves past either of these two into the second round as Le Pen did in 2002.
Mr Sarkozy knows that Chirac's legacy is deeply unpopular and he has done more to distance himself politically from him than many would believe possible of fellow members of a party and government. In the process he has managed to paint himself into a corner as a hard-right, Eurosceptic, uncaring scourge of welfare cheats and immigrants, and an uncritical supporter of the US. Now he needs to reach beyond that constituency, and rebranding started on Sunday.
"I have understood that humanity is a strength, not a weakness," he said, adding the refrain that peppered his speech 10 times: "I have changed". Qui s'excuse s'accuse! (He who makes excuses accuses himself). And he promised to stand up to the US and to fight injustice, while he spoke of helping those who help themselves and "making sure everyone respects the law". Just to make clearer still that the old "Sarko" has not gone away, he spoke of France as heir of 2,000 years of Christianity and said that Turkey does not have a place in Europe. We can expect fireworks in the days ahead.