PARIS - Wars and weather have left few scars on the Arc de Triomphe. Commissioned by Napoleon to celebrate his victories, the 15-storey tower of bone-white stone stands as an eternal monument to a time when Europe trembled before France's might.
The national mood now, as France enters the final week before the April 22 presidential election, is far less exultant. To Roland Perrossier, whose great-great grandfather fought for Napoleon, the arch has become a symbol of decline.
"It's a feeling of lost glory," said Perrossier, sheltering under the arch from a spring squall. "The French have lost the aura they once had, and France - barring a few small exceptions - no longer occupies the place it used to internationally."
Philippe Souleau, a history teacher shepherding a party of schoolchildren, was gloomier still: "France no longer has military strength worth speaking of. It is no longer economically competitive, and all this means is that it has become a second-tier nation internationally and diplomatically. Its voice is no longer heard by all."
This is despite the fact that from super-sized Airbuses to super-fast trains, French taste and ingenuity are global commodities. France has a nuclear arsenal and a veto on the UN Security Council, and its military still sees action in the African corners of its former empire.
Still, no word seems dark enough to describe France's funk.
This malaise has translated into a volatile and unsettled election campaign, with surprises and suspense, led by candidates promising change but not the shock therapy that may be necessary to revive French fortunes.
President Jacques Chirac's decision, at 74, not to seek re-election ensures that the two-round vote April 22 and May 6 will usher in a new era, no matter who wins. That prospect has energized the electorate: Voter registration is up by percentages not seen in at least three decades.
After 12 years of Chirac, France almost certainly will get its first leader born after the Second World War. It might, in another first, be a woman: the Socialists' motherly, ever-smiling Segolene Royal. Or it may be the right's Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian immigrant. Or Francois Bayrou, the centrist son of a farmer.
But while the face will be new, the problems he or she inherits are not, including a massive national debt, a stagnant economy and an unemployment rate that remains above eight per cent nationally and above 20 per cent among people under 25.
Three weeks of riots in 2005 also underscored the reality of a of a vast, angry underclass consisting largely of Africans and Arabs shut out of the French cultural and economic mainstream.
Chirac sparked a brief uptick in French confidence by going toe-to-toe with the U.S. against its war in Iraq. "It was a moment when France looked at itself in the mirror and found itself beautiful," says Emmanuel Riviere of the TNS-Sofres polling agency.
But the war went ahead, anyway, and some believe that the strain in relations with Washington was too great. Within the European Union, the French also sidelined themselves by voting against closer integration in 2005. In TNS-Sofres' monthly poll of 1,000 respondents, generally two-thirds say that France's role in the world is weakening.
French nostalgia for bygone glory and growth seems to hamstring its ability to face the future with confidence.
"In France, there is a particular strain of melancholy," says political philosopher Chantal Delsol. "The British tell themselves, 'We are no longer a great power, so we will live as a middling one.' But the French don't say that. They say, 'We are intrinsically a great power, so why isn't it working in reality?' For a while we try to shut our eyes, but that doesn't work for long. When reality truly dawns, then the first phase is extreme sadness, and that is the phase we are in now."
As they did in the last presidential elections in 2002, millions will likely use their vote, especially in the first round, to shout a loud "Non!" to the elite.
For some, that will mean turning again to extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who blames French ills on immigration, the surrender of French sovereignty to the European Union, and the elite in general. He would have France rebuild its borders, block immigration and dump the EU's common currency, the euro.
In 2002, Le Pen, now 78, stunned France by beating Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to make the run-off against Chirac. While he's not expected to proceed past the first round, his campaign has forced Sarkozy to shift further right and woo Le Pen supporters with promises of a ministry to regulate immigration and safeguard France's national identity.
Royal also has played the patriotic card, having her supporters at her rallies sing the national anthem, "La Marseillaise," and calling for a French flag in every home. That has unsettled some on the left, as has her call for boot camps for young delinquents.
French malaise also partly explains the biggest surprise of the race so far - the rise of Bayrou. The former education minister in conservative governments has repackaged himself as a middle-of-the-road alternative to France's traditional left-right divide. Polls place him third but his endorsement in Sarkozy-Royal runoff could swing the outcome.
Should Bayrou himself confound pollsters and make the runoff, many soundings suggest he would win. Bayrou has said he would form a unity government like that in Germany, whose export-driven economic recovery is the envy of France.
Legislative elections in June will decide whether the new president gets a parliamentary majority to implement change.
"Because we have put them off for so long, all reforms are going to be difficult," said Delsol. "It's a pressure-cooker lid: If you let out even a little steam, the whole thing risks exploding."
Some say, however, that the French depression is overblown and that tweaks, not radical surgery, can turn the situation around. Outgoing Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who avoided major labour reforms but managed to at least trim unemployment, fulminated against "declinologists" whose books on France's demise fill stores' shelves.
Sarkozy talks of a "France that is suffering," but also insists - and that record-breaking train may be a case in point - that the country "is never more ready to startle than when one believes it is in decline."
Optimists take heart from the fact that, while most French tell pollsters their children will grow up worse off than they did, they also make more babies than most other Europeans. And although the French work fewer hours than many, their productivity is high. France's health services are so good that the British cross the English Channel for treatment.
"The country has suffered psychologically but it would not take much to get it back on its feet," Alain Minc, an author, consultant and friend of Sarkozy, said in an interview. "Come autumn, the mood will be as pink, perhaps excessively so, as it is now excessively black."
