President Chirac yesterday put aside his dislike for Nicolas Sarkozy and gave him a lukewarm endorsement for next month’s presidential elections.

Mr Chirac announced that Mr Sarkozy, the Interior Minister and head of the centre-right Union for a Popular Majority, had resigned from the Cabinet, and said: “The UMP chose to support the candidacy of Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election because of his qualities. Therefore, I naturally give him my vote and my support.”

Mr Sarkozy, 52, welcomed the President’s word, saying that it was “of primary political significance” because he “knows better than anybody the demands of the job”.

Mr Chirac’s endorsement was a mixed blessing in view of Mr Sarkozy’s attempt to cast himself as a new-style politician with little to do with the President’s 12-year legacy. Asked last month how he differed from his former mentor, Mr Sarkozy said: “I will not lie, I will not betray.”

With his single-minded ambition and energy, Mr Sarkozy is widely seen as a young version of Mr Chirac. But relations between the two have been strained since 1995 when Mr Sarkozy, then a junior minister, sided with Mr Chirac’s presidential rival Edouard Balladur. Feuding between the pair led Mr Chirac to put Mr Sarkozy down on television three years ago, saying: “I give the orders; he carries them out.”

Mr Sarkozy is favourite to win the presidency on May 6. Opinion polls this week suggest that in a run-off against the Socialist Ségolãne Royal, he would gain 52 per cent support against her 48.

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