French President Jacques Chirac held crisis talks with his prime minister on Monday, under pressure to dismiss him and shake up the conservative government after a crushing defeat in regional elections.
A cabinet reshuffle is widely expected and the fate of cost-cutting reforms hangs in the balance after the left-wing opposition's landslide win on Sunday.
Chirac and Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin made no comment but Chirac's office said he was "working with the prime minister on decisions he will take over the next few days."
Buoyed by deep public discontent with painful reforms that have provoked widespread protests, the Socialist Party and its allies won nearly all of France's 26 regions and beat all cabinet ministers running for regional council seats.
The left won nearly 50 percent of votes to just short of 37 percent for the centre-right, according to definitive interior ministry figures. A big mid-term protest vote had been expected, and it had little impact on France's stock market, but the size of the swing to the left was a shock for Chirac.
"The French have fired a very big warning shot in our direction," government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said.
Chirac could yet ask Raffarin to stay on, shake up the cabinet below him and just tinker with reforms. There are three years until the 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections and the centre-right holds a comfortable majority in parliament.
But ignoring such a clear rebuff for reforms and the prime minister's lack of popularity would be a big risk.
Francois Chereque, head of the large CFDT trade union, told weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur: "The government thought law and order would ease people's anxiety when unemployment is what's eating away at the country".
As reshuffle speculation reached fever pitch, Raffarin had visits on Monday from several politicians including a relatively little known pensions and welfare specialist Xavier Bertrand.
Chirac, whose centre-right UMP party won 14 regions in 1998 against 11 for the left, has not commented on the outcome.
The left swept 20 of the 22 regions in metropolitan France, with the right winning only in Alsace. In Corsica, the left was ahead but needed to agree a coalition before declaring victory.
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