His diplomacy with the early exception of his Bosnia demarches has left France isolated even from long-standing friends

His diplomacy, with the early exception of his Bosnia demarches, has left France isolated even from long-standing friends. Recent bomb attacks have cast doubt on the President's ability to protect France, sapped confidence and sown new divisions between the white and brown populations.Mr Chirac's fall from grace in the eyes of French voters has been the steepest of any elected president But the fault may not be entirely his. A Gaullist of a highly traditional stamp, he has arrived in power just when France is caught up in social and cultural transitions of a historic order.Six months ago, French voters understood that perhaps better than he did. It was less his nationalistic Gaullism that attracted than his Gaullist one-nationism because it met their concern about debilitating social divisions Now, they discover that his Gaullism is indivisible.

They have elected an old-style French politician when they understood the need for a new- style politician with an international dimension.To this extent, the crisis is less one of leadership, or even competence, than of France's need to complete a painful transition from the Fifties to the Nineties while still remaining French. This is a transition between generations and cultures that holds great threats and great promises, and exposes great gulfs in understanding on the way.These gulfs opened up most strikingly in the fracas over nuclear testing. Many younger French people and, it appeared, some of the younger ministers, thought Mr Chirac had been elected to heal France's domestic social ills, not to alienate the world or pollute the South Seas.It was no good for Mr Chirac to cite scientific data and say that nuclear tests do not pollute. While he may have been technically right, the public debate in France was not about science. Nor, unfortunately for Mr Chirac, was it about sovereignty or defence.

It was about France's self-image and about joining the modern world. In failing to recognise this, Mr Chirac emerged as a political relic, out of tune not just with much of world opinion, but with his own younger generation. Even for France, standing alone against the world is now a hard act; it will become even harder.A second sign of the times was the seemingly trivial case of Mr Juppe and his plush Paris flat. Could signing over to yourself a rather desirable piece of real estate, not to own, but only to rent, really cause the downfall of a prime minister, in France? Last month, it very nearly did.Mr Juppe was unlucky. His years in power have straddled a period of change that his technocrat's brain may have grasped, but not his political wit. In 1990, as a deputy mayor of Paris responsible for the city's finances, he signed a lease on a large and prestigious flat owned by the council; the city fathers paid for its refurbishment.

His rent was set at less than two-thirds of the market rate.Mr Juppe's son and daughter, his first wife and his half-brother were also allocated subsidised flats in this sector of privileged council housing. Then, this was nothing unusual; it was just one of the unquestioned privileges available to the elite, and Mr Juppe, acknowledged to be one of the least corruptible of men, had qualified for the elite through hard work and academic brilliance.But what was a minor privilege five years ago, became a political millstone over the summer, not - it appears - through personal or political jealousy on anyone's part, but because unearnt benefits of this kind are on the way to becoming unacceptable to voters. The trend could already be seen when the candidates' personal assets became an issue in this year's presidential election.There is, of course, plenty more conventional corruption in French public life; some of it a legacy of dubious political funding practices; some the large-scale endemic corruption found in local and national government the world over But the Juppe affair and those related to it are different. They represent the decline of assumed privilege, perhaps even its end.A margin note to the Juppe affair was supplied by the fit of public doubting that accompanied celebrations for the 50th anniversary of France's elite college of administration, the Ecole nationale d'administration (ENA), in early October. Mr Juppe, once a star student, declined to preside at the anniversary ceremony; the rumour was that he thought it bad for his image.The questioning, by ex-students among others, was profound. Had the ENA - until very recently the pride and joy of France - outlived its usefulness? Had its tradition of highly academic excellence, applied across politics, civil service and industry, with almost guaranteed lifetime employment for its graduates, perhaps handicapped France economically and socially? Even a year or so ago, such introspection would have been heresy; it might even have been condemned as unpatriotic No longer. There is now talk of the ENA's amalgamation with a more practically orientated college of administration; even of its closure.A fourth, and perhaps more ominous, sign of the times is the French public's response to the security measures introduced after the bomb attacks and the killing of the terrorist suspect, Khaled Kelkal.