French President Jacques Chirac is the most unpopular president of the Fifth Republic since pollsters began measuring the personal approval ratings of French politicians in 1978, according to a survey published on Tuesday.
As the country continued to writhe in anxiety, self-doubt and anger after its rejection of the EU constitution, the poll showed Chirac's popularity had plunged 16 points to 26 percent.
And 69 percent of the French population expressed negative feelings about him.
"This is an unprecedented slump in popularity, and it comes primarily from the president's own camp," said Francois Miquet-Marty of the polling group Louis Harris, which carried out the survey.
Within Chirac's UMP party, his approval rating fell 34 points to 50 percent.
Underlining France's lack of faith in its political class, 58 percent of respondents to the poll, for Liberation, thought the newly appointed prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, would not understand their problems, and 74 percent believed he could not resolve them.
With an approval rating of 41 percent, Villepin is the most unpopular new French prime minister for more than 20 years.
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