Jacques Chirac

Jacques Chirac was the President of the French Republic from 1995 to 2007.

Jacques Chirac was born on November 29, 1932 in Paris. He held the highest responsibilities of the Fifth Republic. He fell into politics when he was young and he has exercised a total of 30 years of political life at the highest level. Indeed, between 1967 and 2007, he was 3 times Prime minister, mayor of Paris for 18 years, MP for 19 years and of course President of the Republic for 12 years (an initial mandate of 7 years and then a second mandate of 5 years).

First mandate (1995-2002)/Second mandate (2002-2007)

1995 Posters: on the left the poster of Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate, in the middle and on the right, the posters of Jacques Chirac.

After two defeats at the election to the presidency of the Republic in 1981 and 1988, Jacques Chirac was elected President of the Republic on May 17, 1995 and defeated Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate.

He chose his closest colleague as Prime Minister, Alain Juppé.

Basing his campaign mainly on an increase in public spending to boost economic growth and reduce social inequality, he changed suddenly his opinion and policy once elected and submitted a plan of drastic economic rigor and pension reforms that generated massive strikes that would last several weeks.

Those decisions contradicted his electoral promises and disappointed many voters. His Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, became very unpopular. Many sectors were on strikes, especially public servants and railways. The country was then in a deadlock situation and in order to get out of the crisis, Chirac had to withdraw most of the reforms of his Prime Minister. The opinion polls showed a strong decrease for the Prime Minister as shown below. Many people were unsatisfied with the reforms.

Finally, no strong reforms were implemented from 1995 to 1997. In order to revive his political action, Chirac decided to dissolve the Parliament for early legislative elections in 1997. He could not convince voters, most of them were disappointed by unfulfilled promises. In 1997, the Socialists, opponents of Chirac, won the legislative elections. It was therefore a period of “cohabitation” between with a right-wing President and a left-wing Prime Minister.

Lionel Jospin became Prime Minister and reduced the domestic role of Jacques Chirac for 5 years. Indeed, as Prime Minister, he was in charge of the domestic policy of the country, and he could also intervene in international decisions made by the President. Jospin became rapidly more popular than the President especially since its efficient economic policy reduced significantly the unemployment rate.

Although he rarely disagreed with Chirac on the French international policy, Jospin quickly became a problem for Chirac since he could assist at the European summits where he could also express his views. Chirac got therefore a relatively limited political power and his presidency was seriously weakened.

Review of first mandate

In his first term, one probably will remember its clumsy decision to resume nuclear testing in the Pacific in 1995, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing an outcry, particularly in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the USA and among ecologists. The anti-French feelings were exacerbated during this period in Asia. Australians threw French wine to sewers; New Zealanders burnt the French flag. Huge demonstrations were held in Asia against these tests.

It was also during this mandate that a number of cases of corruption and abuse of social goods surfaced. Those cases of corruption were mainly held before his first mandate when he was mayor of Paris. He was suspected of using funds for fictitious jobs and rigging the elections with false voters in some districts of the capital. It was also revealed, that as a mayor of Paris, he overspent money in personal luxury lunch spending more than 700 euros on average per day between 1987 and 1995. All these accusations caused general consternation and the rejection of the political world by the people.

What one can recall is:

1. He recognized the full responsibility of the French government (then called “l'Etat français”) in the arrest and the deportation of Jews during the Second World War. On 16 July 1995 at the 53rd anniversary of the “Rafle du vélodrome d'hiver”, Jacques Chirac acknowledged the "collective guilt" of France and declared: "these dark hours soil forever our history and are an insult to our past and our traditions. Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French government." None of his predecessors had recognized the fault of the French government during the Second World War claiming that the collaboration had been forced by the Nazi occupiers.
2. By referendum, the President's mandate term was changed from 7 to 5 years.
3. Finally, he abolished the military service (established by Napoleon) and created a real professional army able to react more rapidly and efficiently during military interventions.

Broadly speaking, many people were disappointed during his first term.

Second mandate.

In 2002, he was again a presidential candidate and he based his campaign primarily on security and tax cuts issues. Lionel Jospin was also a candidate and seemed to be more popular than Jacques Chirac. Although his government had succeeded at the economic level with a sharp drop of the unemployment rate, his government did not do too well on security and on the fight against crime. Jacques Chirac used this weakness during the campaign exacerbating feelings of insecurity. As a result, it boosted the National Front, an extreme right-wing movement which had advocated for several years an anti-immigration and security policies. Lionel Jospin was beaten in first round of the presidential elections by Jacques Chirac, but also by Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the extreme right-wing, causing shock and dismay.

Jacques Chirac finally won the presidential election in the second round with a score with no common measure: 82.21%. This score is explained by the fact that many voters had strongly rejected the extreme right-wing party in voting for Jacques Chirac without really adopting his program. The same year, the UMP (“Union pour la Majorité”), the party of Jacques Chirac, also won the legislative elections and giving him all the powers and freedom he had not had during his first term.

Jean-Pierre Raffarin was appointed Prime Minister and implemented some of the campaign promises: lowering the income tax, taking several measures against crime.

Nicolas Sarkozy is appointed Minister of the Interior. Several measures were also taken to improve road safety. Several reforms are enacted on pensions, social security, and decentralization.

Aware of its inaction during his first term, Jacques Chirac wanted to be more active at the international level. From 26 August to 4 September 2002, Jacques Chirac was the Earth Summit held in Johannesburg. He went along with CEOs of big French companies and NGOs. He said, as part of an intervention remained famous: "Our house is burning and we are looking elsewhere." On the international level, he supported Bush after the September 11 attacks. He was the first head of state to visit the scene of attacks and provided all the support in the fight against terrorism. France therefore fought in Afghanistan alongside the Americans.

But in 2003 he opposed the invasion of Iraq by the United States. He was caricatured as the main opponent and as a traitor by the Anglo-Saxons. The relations with the USA became execrable and Chirac also faced a hostile Anglo-Saxon media campaign as The Sun, which portrayed him as a "worm".

However, France and the USA have never ceased to have diplomatic relations even during the first months of the war in Iraq. The links were strengthened after the first U.S. difficulties in 2005. The complicated diplomatic relations between Chirac and Bush are well summarized in the book of Henri Vernet and Thomas Cantalouble "Chirac against Bush, another war" (available at FranceYoko).

At the European level, relations became quickly complicated. In order to implement a new Constitution for the European Union, France had proposed a text which should have been ratified by each member state of the E.U. Given the complexity of the text, many countries used the parliamentary vote rather than a popular referendum. Chirac took the risk of a popular referendum. The French voted massively "no" to the referendum on the European constitution, thus blocking the E.U and put Chirac in an awkward position. He wad indeed personally involved in the referendum thinking that the French were deeply pro-European. Many voted "No" against Jacques Chirac himself rather than against Europe and its constitution. Then, his popularity dropped sharply.

His rivalry with Nicolas Sarkozy increased strongly, both men disliking each other. Jean-Pierre Raffarin could not control both men and became exhausted of this strong rivalry. At the national side, the economic situation is not particularly good, Raffarin had to deal with a huge deficit forbidden by the E.U. as France had been in the Euro-zone for a yaer and had to control its public spending.

Exhausted, the Prime minister resigned and was replaced by Dominique de Villepin.

In spite of their rivalry, Chirac had to reappoint Sarkozy as Minister of the Interior. Indeed, he was perceived as an ambitious but efficient minister by the people. His popularity was very high and not appointing him to the government would have seriously damaged Chirac's popularity (which was already extremely low at that time). Furthermore, Nicolas Sarkozy declared that he would be a candidate to the President election in 2007 which irritated Chirac. Then, Chirac counted on de Villepin to be in Sarkozy's way. Chirac considered Sarkozy as an opportunist and a traitor. Indeed, Nicolas Sarkozy had supported Edouard Balladur, a strong rival of Jacques Chirac in the presidential election of 1995. These two personalities had always had confrontational relations as it is recounted in the excellent book "The Rebel and the King" of Beatrice Gurrey (available at FranceYoko).

His refusal of the war in Iraq gave him an international prestige both in Europe and in some underdeveloped countries. Chirac took the opportunity to be the defender of the poor and developing countries. He then begins a series of meetings with African leaders and South America. Also, he always had very good relations with Poutin. He awarded him with the Légion d'Honneur.

He was also a strong admirer of Japan, a country that he visited many times and met political leaders and many celebrities:

Nevertheless, since the European referendum, his popularity had been at the lowest level. On the 2nd of September 2005, he was hospitalized at the military hospital of Val de Grace, for a stroke which led to a slight vision disorder (but this disorder disappeared a few days later). He left the hospital on September 9, 2005, but could not fly for a few weeks. He hardly hid his rivalry with Nicolas Sarkozy, which became even stronger after the President's health accident.

The relations with the USA got better in 2005 because of the US difficulties in Iraq. Chirac never liked Bush Jr. but the two countries have been fighting terrorism in Afghanistan since 2001.

De Villepin became more popular than Sarkozy and could have been a possible candidate for the presidential election. Nevertheless, a quick reform voted in the Parliament destroyed its popularity among the university students and the trade unions. This reform called the "C.P.E" (Contrat Première Embauche: First Job Contract) was supposed to bring flexibility in the job market for the graduates. The university graduates would have had a lower wage and could have been fired more easily. This reform was supposed to decrease the unemployment among the university graduates which is the highest one in Europe (about 25% of the graduates are unemployed). Hence, this flexibility was unacceptable for many university students and the country got massive universities strikes and demonstrations. Sarkozy himself was against the reform. For a while, de Villepin wanted to force the people to accept the reform but finally gave up and Chirac withdrew the C.P.E.

At the end of 2005, according to a survey, 1% of the French people wanted Jacques Chirac to be candidate at the 2007 presidential election. In addition, one-third of the French people wanted him to resign in order to provoke an early presidential election. Because of his unpopularity, de Villepin could not be candidate leaving Sarkozy the only candidate for representing the right-wing movement in the 2007 presidential election. Only Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed its popularity as Minister of Interior since he could control severe riots in the Paris suburbs in 2005. Jacques Chirac finally dropped the idea to be a candidate and said he would support Nicolas Sarkozy. The latter was elected president of the Republic on May 6, 2007.

Review of the second Mandate

The outcome of his second term is mixed. He would have remained very popular in many developing countries, especially for having opposed to the war in Iraq, for having promoted dialogue between cultures and acted in defence of the Third World countries. Grand admirer of Africa and African arts, he was greatly appreciated by many African heads of state. At the end of his mandate, Chirac inaugurated a museum dedicated to the “primary arts”, the Musée du Quai Branly:

However, the record of Jacques Chirac at the national level is poor. At the end of his two mandates, he left a deeply divided France (as shown by the riots in the suburbs of the end of 2005 or the "No" to the referendum on the European Constitution), a huge debt (€1142 billion in 2006, representing 63.7% of GDP), and a stagnant economy compared to its European partners and the rest of the world.

Moreover, Jacques Chirac was unable to implement the necessary reforms to modernise France, while at the same time France's European neighbours reformed their economies in depth - and in particular the government of Gerhard Schröder in Germany, where Socialist and Greens together, increased the retirement age to 67 years. After the failure of reform projects and the trauma of major strikes at the end of 1995, Jacques Chirac appeared as afraid by the threat of street demonstrations and trade unions (even if they represent less than 10% of the employees) and cancelled any reform that could have been unpopular.

He nevertheless reconciled France and Germany on European issues with Angela Merkel at the end of his mandate.

One of the best books that sums up the inertia of the president facing necessary but painful reforms is "the tragedy of the President" by Franz Olivier Giesbert (available at FranceYoko).

During his two terms in office, Jacques Chirac was protected by presidential immunity and could not appear before justice. This was also denounced by the press around the world especially during his first term during the series of corruption cases.

As such immunity is lifted now, Jacques Chirac must respond in cases of corruption and illegal financing of political parties to justice.

Not so easy to be president ....

One can admire few caricatures of French politics under the following links:

Le placide

Cabu

Plantu

Charlie Hebdo

Few caricatures of Chirac: