French President Jacques Chirac is expected to announce his retirement from frontline politics on Sunday after a 45-year career that was strong on symbolic gestures but short on concrete reforms.
His announcement, which officials say will be made during a televised address to the nation at 8 pm. (1900 GMT), will mark the end of an era for France and clear the way for a new generation of younger politicians now vying for power.
Chirac, 74, has served as president since 1995 and leaves behind a difficult legacy for his successor, with the French economy underachieving most European peers, the state heavily indebted and social tensions simmering in deprived suburbs.
His natural heir in the conservative camp, presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy, said on Sunday he hoped to receive Chirac's endorsement, but also delivered a stern rebuke to his one-time mentor by promising a new approach to politics.
"I will not prevaricate with the French, I will not lie to them, I will not betray them," he said in an interview published in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper.
"I want to be the candidate who says very clearly to the French what he will do if they give him their trust. That is my speciality. I am therefore different from Jacques Chirac."
Sarkozy is leading in the polls ahead of the April-May election, but he faces a tight race against his two main foes-Socialist Segolene Royal and centrist Francois Bayrou.
Chirac, 74, has clung to the notion of possibly running again to avoid becoming a lame duck president, but a string of setbacks and a bout of ill health have left little doubt in most people's minds that he will not try to hold on to power.
While in power, Chirac ended compulsory military service, stood firm against the increasingly popular far right and was the first president to acknowledge that France's Vichy regime had assisted the Nazis in the World War Two Holocaust.
He also played an important role in ending the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and won widespread popularity in the Arab world for standing up to U.S. President George. W. Bush over the invasion of Iraq in 2003.