He has ostentatiously failed to back his party's nominee, Nicolas Sarkozy, a man he heartily dislikes who is in effect running on an anti-Chirac ticket.
But I doubt the doctor, still reviled by Lib Dems for refusing to join their party in the late 1980s, is the man to lure their peers into a last moment rebellion, which would have the effect of prolonging the coalition's parliamentary agony.