After pursuing these policies in his second term as prime minister, Chirac changed his views. He argued for differenteconomic policies and was elected president in1995, with 52.6% of the vote in the second round, beating SocialistLionel Jospin, after campaigning on a platform of healing the "social rift" (fracture sociale).[6] Chirac's economic policies, based ondirigisme, allowing for state-directed investment, stood in opposition to thelaissez-faire policies of the United Kingdom under the ministries ofMargaret Thatcher andJohn Major, which Chirac described as "Anglo-Saxonultraliberalism".[7]
Jacques René Chirac was born on 29 November 1932 in the5th arrondissement of Paris.[9] He was the son of Abel François Marie Chirac (1898–1968), a successful executive for an aircraft company,[6] and Marie-Louise Valette (1902–1973), a housewife. His grandparents were all teachers[10] fromSainte-Féréole inCorrèze. His great-grandparents on both sides werepeasants in the rural south-western region of theCorrèze.[11]
According to Chirac, his name "originates from thelangue d'oc, that of the troubadours, therefore that of poetry".[12] He was aCatholic.[13]
Chirac was an only child (his elder sister, Jacqueline, died in infancy nearly ten years before his birth).[14] He was educated in Paris at theCours Hattemer, a private school.[15] He then attended theLycée Carnot and theLycée Louis-le-Grand. After hisbaccalauréat, behind his father's back, he went off to serve for three months as a sailor on a coal transport.[16]
Chirac playedrugby union forBrive's youth team, and also played at university level. He playedno. 8 andsecond row.[17] At age 18, his ambition was to become a ship's captain.[18]
At age 16, Chirac wanted to learnSanskrit and found aWhite Russian Sanskrit teacher in Paris who ended up teaching him Russian; by age 17 Chirac was almost fluent in Russian.[16] Inspired byCharles de Gaulle, Chirac started to pursue a civil service career in the 1950s. During this period, he joined theFrench Communist Party, sold copies ofL'Humanité, and took part in meetings of a communist cell.[19] In 1950, he signed the Soviet-inspiredStockholm Appeal for the abolition ofnuclear weapons – which led him to be questioned when he applied for his first visa to the United States.[20]
Chirac trained as a reserve military officer inarmoured cavalry atSaumur.[22] He then volunteered to fight in theAlgerian War, using personal connections to be sent despite the reservations of his superiors. His superiors did not want to make him an officer because they suspected he had communist leanings.[23] In 1965, he became an auditor in theCourt of Auditors.[24]
In April 1962, Chirac was appointed head of the personal staff of Prime MinisterGeorges Pompidou. This appointment launched Chirac's political career. Pompidou considered Chirac hisprotégé, and referred to him as "my bulldozer" for his skill at getting things done. The nicknameLe Bulldozer caught on in French political circles, where it also referred to his abrasive manner. As late as the 1988presidential election, Chirac maintained this reputation.[25]
At Pompidou's suggestion, Chirac ran as aGaullist for a seat in theNational Assembly in 1967.[18] He was elected deputy for his homeCorrèzedépartement, a stronghold of the left. This surprising victory in the context of a Gaullist ebb permitted him to enter the government asMinister of Social Affairs. Although Chirac was well-situated in de Gaulle's entourage, being related by marriage to the general's sole companion at the time of theAppeal of 18 June 1940, he was more of a "Pompidolian" than a "Gaullist". When student and worker unrest rocked France inMay 1968, Chirac played a central role in negotiating a truce.[18] Subsequently, as state secretary of economy (1968–1971), he worked closely withValéry Giscard d'Estaing, who headed the ministry of economy and finance.[26]
After some months in the ministry for Relations with Parliament, Chirac's first high-level post came in 1972 when he becameMinister of Agriculture and Rural Development under Pompidou, who had been elected president in 1969, after de Gaulle retired. Chirac quickly earned a reputation as a champion of French farmers' interests, and first attracted international attention when he assailed U.S.,West German, andEuropean Commission agricultural policies which conflicted with French interests.
On 27 February 1974, after the resignation ofRaymond Marcellin, Chirac was appointedMinister of the Interior.[27] On 21 March 1974, he cancelled theSAFARI project due to privacy concerns after its existence was revealed byLe Monde.[28] From March 1974, he was entrusted by President Pompidou with preparations for the presidential election then scheduled for 1976. These elections were moved forward because of Pompidou's sudden death on 2 April 1974.
Chirac vainly attempted to rally Gaullists behind Prime MinisterPierre Messmer.Jacques Chaban-Delmas announced his candidacy in spite of the disapproval of the "Pompidolians". Chirac and others published thecall of the 43 in favour of Giscard d'Estaing, the leader of the non-Gaullist part of the parliamentary majority. Giscard d'Estaing was elected as Pompidou's successor after France's most competitive election campaign in years. In return, the new president chose Chirac to lead the cabinet.
WhenValéry Giscard d'Estaing became president, he nominated Chirac asprime minister on 27 May 1974, to reconcile the "Giscardian" and "non-Giscardian" factions of the parliamentary majority. At the age of 41, Chirac stood out as the very model of thejeunes loups ('young wolves') of French politics, but he was faced with the hostility of the "Barons of Gaullism" who considered him a traitor for his role during the previous presidential campaign. In December 1974, he took the lead of theUnion of Democrats for the Republic (UDR) against the will of its more senior personalities.
As prime minister, Chirac quickly set about persuading the Gaullists that, despite the social reforms proposed by President Giscard, the basic tenets of Gaullism, such as national and European independence, would be retained. Chirac was advised by Pierre Juillet andMarie-France Garaud, two former advisers of Pompidou. These two organised the campaign against Chaban-Delmas in 1974. They advocated a clash with Giscard d'Estaing because they thought his policy bewildered the conservative electorate.[29]
Citing Giscard's unwillingness to give him authority, Chirac resigned as prime minister in 1976.[30] He proceeded to build up his political base among France's several conservative parties, with a goal of reconstituting the Gaullist UDR into aNeo-Gaullist group, the Rally for the Republic (RPR). Chirac's first tenure as prime minister was also an arguably progressive one, with improvements in both the minimum wage and the social welfare system carried out during the course of his premiership.[29]
After his departure from the cabinet, Chirac wanted to gain the leadership of the political right, to gain the French presidency in the future. The RPR was conceived as an electoral machine against President Giscard d'Estaing. Paradoxically, Chirac benefited from Giscard's decision to create the office ofmayor in Paris, which had been in abeyance since the 1871Commune, because the leaders of theThird Republic (1871–1940) feared that having municipal control of the capital would give the mayor too much power. In 1977, Chirac stood as a candidate againstMichel d'Ornano, a close friend of the president, and won. As mayor of Paris, Chirac's political influence grew. He held this post until 1995.[31]
Chirac supporters point out that, as mayor, he provided programmes to help the elderly, people with disabilities, and single mothers, and introduced the street-cleaningMotocrotte,[32] while providing incentives for businesses to stay in Paris. His opponents contend that he installed "clientelist" policies.
In 1978, Chirac attacked Giscard'spro-European policy and made a nationalist turn with the December 1978Call of Cochin, initiated by his counsellorsMarie-France Garaud andPierre Juillet [fr], which had first been called by Pompidou. Hospitalised inHôpital Cochin after a car crash, he declared that "as always about the drooping of France, the pro-foreign party acts with its peaceable and reassuring voice". He appointedYvan Blot, an intellectual who would later join theNational Front, as director of his campaigns for the1979 European election.[33]
After the poor results of the election, Chirac broke with Garaud and Juillet. Vexed Marie-France Garaud stated: "We thought Chirac was made of the same marble of which statues are carved in, we perceive he's of the samefaiencebidets are made of."[34] His rivalry with Giscard d'Estaing intensified.
Chirac made his first run for president against Giscard d'Estaing in the1981 election, thus splitting the centre-right vote.[35] He was eliminated in the first round with 18% of the vote. He reluctantly supported Giscard in the second round. He refused to give instructions to the RPR voters but said that he supported the incumbent president "in a private capacity", which was interpreted as almostde facto support of theSocialist Party's (PS) candidate,François Mitterrand, who was elected by a broad majority.[36]
Giscard has always blamed Chirac for his defeat. He was told by Mitterrand, before his death, that the latter had dined with Chirac before the election. Chirac told the Socialist candidate that he wanted to "get rid of Giscard". In his memoirs, Giscard wrote that between the two rounds, he phoned the RPR headquarters. He passed himself off, as a right-wing voter, by changing his voice. The RPR employee advised him "certainly do not vote Giscard!" After 1981, the relationship between the two men became tense, with Giscard, even though he had been in the same government coalition as Chirac, criticising Chirac's actions openly.[citation needed]
After the May 1981 presidential election, the right also lost the subsequentlegislative election that year. However, as Giscard had been knocked out, Chirac appeared as the principal leader of the right-wing opposition. Due to his attacks against the economic policy of the Socialist government, he gradually aligned himself with the prevailingeconomically liberal opinion, even though it did not correspond with Gaullist doctrine. While the far-right National Front grew, taking advantage of theproportional representation electoral system which had been introduced for the1986 legislative elections, he signed an electoral pact with the Giscardian (and more or less Christian Democratic) partyUnion for French Democracy (UDF).[citation needed]
When the RPR/UDF right-wing coalition won a slight majority in the National Assembly in the1986 election, Mitterrand (PS) appointed Chirac prime minister (though many in Mitterrand's inner circle lobbied him to chooseJacques Chaban-Delmas instead). This unprecedented power-sharing arrangement, known ascohabitation, gave Chirac the lead in domestic affairs. However, it is generally conceded that Mitterrand used the areas granted to the President of the Republic, or "reserved domains" of the Presidency, Defence and Foreign Affairs, to belittle his prime minister.[citation needed]
Chirac's cabinetsold many public companies, renewing theliberalisation initiated underLaurent Fabius's Socialist government of 1984–1986, and abolished thesolidarity tax on wealth (ISF), a symbolic tax on those with high-value assets introduced by Mitterrand's government. Elsewhere, the plan for university reform (planDevaquet) caused a crisis in 1986 when a student calledMalik Oussekine was killed by the police, leading to massive demonstrations and the proposal's withdrawal. It has been said during other student crises that this event strongly affected Jacques Chirac, who was afterwards careful about possiblepolice violence during such demonstrations (e.g., maybe explaining part of the decision to "promulgate without applying" theFirst Employment Contract (CPE) afterlarge student demonstrations against it).[37]
Chirac (centre) during his second term as prime minister
One of his first acts concerning foreign policy was to call backJacques Foccart (1913–1997), who had been de Gaulle's and his successors' leading counsellor for African matters, called by journalistStephen Smith the "father of all "networks" on the continent, at the time [in 1986] aged 72."[38] Foccart, who had also co-founded the GaullistSAC militia (dissolved by Mitterrand in 1982 after theAuriol massacre) along withCharles Pasqua, and who was a key component of theFrançafrique system, was again called to theElysée Palace when Chirac won the 1995 presidential election. Furthermore, confronted byanti-colonialist movements inNew Caledonia, Prime Minister Chirac ordered a military intervention against theseparatists in the Ouvéa cave, leading to the deaths of 19 militants. He allegedly refused any alliance withJean-Marie Le Pen'sNational Front.[39]
Chirac ran against Mitterrand for a second time in the1988 election. He obtained 20 per cent of the vote in the first round but lost the second with only 46 per cent. He resigned from the cabinet and the right lost thenext legislative election.[40]
For the first time, his leadership over the RPR was challenged.Charles Pasqua andPhilippe Séguin criticised his abandonment of Gaullist doctrines. On the right, a new generation of politicians, the "renovation men", accused Chirac and Giscard of being responsible for the electoral defeats. In 1992, convinced a candidate could not become president whilst advocating anti-European policies, he called for a "yes" vote in the referendum on theMaastricht Treaty, against the opinion of Pasqua, Séguin and a majority of the RPR voters, who chose to vote "no".[41]
While he still was mayor of Paris (since 1977),[42] Chirac went toAbidjan (Côte d'Ivoire) where he supportedPresident Houphouët-Boigny (1960–1993), although the latter was being called a "thief" by the local population. Chirac then declared thatmultipartism was a "kind of luxury".[38]
Nevertheless, the right won the1993 legislative election. Chirac announced that he did not want to come back as prime minister as his previous term had ended with his unsuccessful run for the presidency against Mitterrand who was still president at this point.
Chirac instead suggested the appointment ofEdouard Balladur, who had promised that he would not run for the presidency against Chirac in 1995. However, benefiting from positive polls, Balladur decided to be a presidential candidate, with the support of a majority of right-wing politicians. Balladur broke from Chirac along with a number of friends and allies, including Charles Pasqua,Nicolas Sarkozy, etc., who supported his candidacy. A small group offidels would remain with Chirac, includingAlain Juppé andJean-Louis Debré. When Nicolas Sarkozy became president in 2007, Juppé was one of the fewchiraquiens to serve in François Fillon's government.[43]
During the1995 presidential campaign, Chirac criticised the "sole thought" (pensée unique) ofneoliberalism represented by his challenger on the right and promised to reduce the "social fracture", placing himself more to the centre and thus forcing Balladur toradicalise himself. Ultimately, he obtained more votes than Balladur in the first round (20.8 per cent), and then defeated theSocialist candidateLionel Jospin in the second round (52.6 per cent).
Chirac was elected on a platform of tax cuts and job programmes, but his policies did little to ease the labour strikes during his first months in office. On the domestic front, neo-liberal economic austerity measures introduced by Chirac and his conservative prime ministerAlain Juppé, including budgetary cutbacks, proved highly unpopular. At about the same time, it became apparent that Juppé and others had obtained preferential conditions for public housing, as well as other perks. At the year's end, Chirac facedmajor workers' strikes which turned, in November–December 1995, into ageneral strike, one of the largest since May 1968. The demonstrations were largely pitted against Juppé's plan for pension reform, and ultimately led to his dismissal.
Shortly after taking office, Chirac – undaunted by international protests by environmental groups – insisted upon the resumption ofnuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll inFrench Polynesia in 1995, a few months before signing theComprehensive Test Ban Treaty.[44] Reacting to criticism, Chirac said, "You only have to look back at 1935...There were people then who were against France arming itself, and look what happened." On 1 February 1996, Chirac announced that France had ended "once and for all" its nuclear testing and intended to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Elected as President of the Republic, he refused to discuss the existence of French military bases in Africa, despite requests by theMinistry of Defence and theMinistry of Foreign Affairs.[38] The French Army thus remained in Côte d'Ivoire as well as inOmar Bongo's Gabon.
Prior to 1995, the French government had maintained that theFrench Republic had been dismantled whenPhilippe Pétain instituted a new French State duringWorld War II and that the Republic had been re-established when the war was over. It was not for France, therefore, to apologise for the roundup of Jews for deportation that happened while the Republic had not existed and was carried out by a state,Vichy France, which it did not recognise. PresidentFrançois Mitterrand had reiterated this position: "The Republic had nothing to do with this. I do not believe France is responsible," he said in September 1994.[45]
Chirac was the first president of France to take responsibility for the deportation of Jews during the Vichy regime. In a speech made on 16 July 1995 at the site of theVel' d'Hiv Roundup, where 13,000 Jews had been held for deportation to concentration camps in July 1942, Chirac said, "France, on that day, committed the irreparable". Those responsible for the roundup were "4,500 policemen and gendarmes, French, under the authority of their leaders [who] obeyed the demands of the Nazis. ... the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French State".[46][47][48]
In 1997, Chirac dissolved parliament forearly legislative elections in a gamble designed to bolster support for his conservative economic program. But instead, it created an uproar, and his power was weakened by the subsequent backlash. The Socialist Party (PS),joined by other parties on the left, soundly defeated Chirac's conservative allies, forcing Chirac into a new period ofcohabitation with Jospin as prime minister (1997–2002), which lasted five years.
Cohabitation significantly weakened the power of Chirac's presidency. The French president, by aconstitutional convention, only controls foreign and military policy— and even then, allocation of funding is under the control of Parliament and under the significant influence of the prime minister. Short of dissolving parliament and calling for new elections, the president was left with little power to influence public policy regarding crime, the economy, and public services. Chirac seized the occasion to periodically criticise Jospin's government.
His position was weakened byscandals about the financing of RPR by Paris municipality. In 2001, the left, represented byBertrand Delanoë (PS), won a majority on the city council of the capital.Jean Tiberi, Chirac's successor at the Paris city hall, was forced to resign after having been put under investigation in June 1999 on charges oftrafic d'influences in theHLMs of Paris affairs (related to the illegal financing of the RPR). Tiberi was finally expelled from theRally for the Republic, Chirac's party, on 12 October 2000, declaring to the magazineLe Figaro on 18 November 2000: "Jacques Chirac is not my friend anymore".[49]
After the publication of the Jean-Claude Méry byLe Monde on 22 September 2000, in which Jean-Claude Méry, in charge of the RPR's financing, directly accused Chirac of organising the network, and of having been physically present on 5 October 1986, when Méry gave in cash 5 millionFrancs, which came from companies who had benefited from state deals, toMichel Roussin, personal secretary (directeur de cabinet) of Chirac,[50][51] Chirac refused to attend court in response to his summons by judgeEric Halphen, and the highest echelons of the French justice system declared that he could not be inculpated while in office.
During his two terms, he increased the Elysee Palace's total budget by 105 per cent (to €90 million, whereas 20 years before it was the equivalent of €43.7 million). He doubled the number of presidential cars – to 61 cars and seven scooters in the Palace's garage. He hired 145 extra employees – the total number of people he employed simultaneously was 963.
As the Supreme Commander of the French armed forces, he reduced the military budget, as did his predecessor. At the end of his first term, it accounted for three per cent of GDP.[52] In 1997 the aircraft carrierClemenceau was decommissioned after 37 years of service, with her sister shipFoch decommissioned in 2000 after 37 years of service, leaving the French Navy with no aircraft carrier until 2001, whenCharles de Gaulle was commissioned.[53] He also reduced expenditure on nuclear weapons[citation needed] and the French nuclear arsenal was reduced to include 350 warheads, compared to the Russian nuclear arsenal of 16,000 warheads.[citation needed] He also published a plan to reduce the number of fighters the French military had by 30.[54]
After François Mitterrand left office in 1995, Chirac began a rapprochement with NATO by joining theMilitary Committee and attempting to negotiate a return to theintegrated military command, which failed after the French demand for parity with the United States went unmet. The possibility of a further attempt foundered after Chirac was forced into cohabitation with a Socialist-led cabinet between 1997 and 2002, then poor Franco-American relations after the French UN veto threat over Iraq in 2003 made transatlantic negotiations impossible.
On 25 July 2000, as Chirac and the first lady were returning from theG7 Summit in Okinawa, Japan, they were placed in a dangerous situation byAir France Flight 4590 after they landed at Charles de Gaulle International Airport. The first couple were in an Air FranceBoeing 747 taxiing toward the terminal when the jet had to stop and wait for Flight 4590 to take off.[55] The departing plane, anAérospatiale-BAC Concorde, ran over a strip of metal on takeoff puncturing its left fuel tank and sliced electrical wires near the left landing gear. The sequence of events ignited a large fire and caused the Concorde to veer left on its takeoff roll. As it reached takeoff speed and lifted off the ground, it came within 30 feet of hitting Chirac's 747. Photographs of Flight 4590 ablaze were taken by passenger Toshihiko Sato on Chirac's jetliner.
At the age of 69, Chirac faced his fourth presidential campaign in 2002. He received 20% of the vote in the first ballot of thepresidential elections in April 2002. It had been expected that he would face incumbent prime ministerLionel Jospin (PS) in the second round of elections; instead, Chirac faced far-right politicianJean-Marie Le Pen of theNational Front (FN), who came in 200,000 votes ahead of Jospin. All parties other than the National Front (except forLutte ouvrière) called for opposing Le Pen, even if it meant voting for Chirac. The 14-day period between the two rounds of voting was marked by demonstrations against Le Pen and slogans such as "Vote for the crook, not for the fascist" or "Vote with a clothespin on your nose". Chirac won re-election by a landslide, with 82 per cent of the vote on the second ballot. However, Chirac became increasingly unpopular during his second term. According to a July 2005 poll,[56] 37 per cent judged Chirac favourably and 63 per cent unfavourably. In 2006,The Economist wrote that Chirac "is the most unpopular occupant of the Elysée Palace in the fifth republic's history."[57]
As the left-wing Socialist Party was in thorough disarray following Jospin's defeat, Chirac reorganised politics on theright, establishing a new party – initially called the Union of the Presidential Majority, then theUnion for a Popular Movement (UMP). The RPR had broken down; a number of members had formedEurosceptic breakaways. While the Giscardian liberals of theUnion for French Democracy (UDF) had moved to the right,[citation needed] the UMP won theparliamentary elections that followed the presidential poll with ease.
During an official visit toMadagascar on 21 July 2005, Chirac described the repression of the 1947Malagasy uprising, which left between 80,000 and 90,000 dead, as "unacceptable".
Despite past opposition to state intervention, the Chirac government approved a €2.8 billion aid package to troubled manufacturing giantAlstom.[58] In October 2004, Chirac signed atrade agreement with PRC presidentHu Jintao where Alstom was given €1 billion in contracts and promises of future investment in China.[59]
On 14 July 2002, duringBastille Day celebrations, Chirac survived an assassination attempt by a lone gunman with a rifle hidden in a guitar case. The would-be assassin fired a shot toward the presidentialmotorcade, before being overpowered by bystanders.[60] The gunman,Maxime Brunerie, underwent psychiatric testing; the violent far-right group with which he was associated,Unité Radicale, was thence administratively dissolved.
Despite British and American pressure, Chirac threatened to veto, at that given point, a resolution in theUN Security Council that would authorise the use of military force to ridIraq of alleged weapons of mass destruction, and rallied other governments to his position. "Iraq today does not represent an immediate threat that justifies an immediate war", Chirac said on 18 March 2003. Future prime ministerDominique de Villepin acquired much of his popularity for his speech against the war at the United Nations (UN).[62]
After Togo's leaderGnassingbé Eyadéma's death on 5 February 2005, Chirac gave him tribute and supported his son,Faure Gnassingbé, who has since succeeded his father.[38]
On 19 January 2006, Chirac said that France was prepared to launch anuclear strike against any country that sponsors aterrorist attack against French interests. He said his country'snuclear arsenal had been reconfigured to include the ability to make a tactical strike in retaliation for terrorism.[63]
Chirac criticised theIsraeli offensive into Lebanon on 14 July 2006.[64] However, Israeli Army Radio later reported that Chirac had secretly told Israeli prime ministerEhud Olmert that France would support an Israeli invasion of Syria and the overthrow of the government of PresidentBashar al-Assad, promising to veto any moves against Israel in the United Nations orEuropean Union.[65] Whereas the disagreement on Iraq had caused a rift between Paris and Washington, recent analysis suggests that both governments worked closely together on the Syria file to end the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, and that Chirac was a driver of this diplomatic cooperation.[66]
In July 2006, theG8 met to discuss international energy concerns. Despite the rising awareness ofglobal warming issues, the G8 focused on "energy security" issues. Chirac continued[when?] to be the voice[citation needed] within the G8 summit meetings to support international action to curb global warming andclimate change concerns. Chirac warned that "humanity is dancing on avolcano" and called for serious action by the world's leading industrialised nations.[citation needed]
Chirac espoused a staunchly pro-Moroccan policy, and the already established pro-Moroccan French stances vis-à-vis theWestern Sahara conflict were strengthened during his presidential tenure.[68]
Chirac requested theLandau-report (published in September 2004) and combined with theReport of the Technical Group on Innovative Financing Mechanisms formulated upon request by the Heads of State of Brazil, Chile, France and Spain (issued in December 2004), these documents present various opportunities for innovative financing mechanisms while equally stressing the advantages (stability and predictability) of tax-based models. TheUNITAID project was born. Today the organisation's executive board is chaired byMarisol Touraine.[69]
On 29 May 2005, areferendum was held in France to decide whether the country should ratify the proposed treaty for aConstitution of the European Union (TCE). The result was a victory for the No campaign, with 55 per cent of voters rejecting the treaty on a turnout of 69 per cent, dealing a devastating blow to Chirac and theUnion for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, and to part of the centre-left which had supported the TCE. Following the referendum defeat, Chirac replaced his prime ministerJean-Pierre Raffarin with Dominique de Villepin. In an address to the nation, Chirac declared that the new cabinet's top priority was to curb unemployment, which was consistently hovering above 10 per cent, calling for a "national mobilisation" to that effect.[70]
Following majorstudent protests in spring 2006, which followedcivil unrest in autumn 2005 after the death of two young boys inClichy-sous-Bois, one of the poorest communes in Paris' suburbs, Chirac retracted the proposedFirst Employment Contract (CPE) by "promulgating [it] without applying it", an unheard-of – and, some claim, illegal – move intended to appease the protesters while giving the appearance of not making avolte-face regarding the contract, and therefore to continue his support for his prime ministerDominique de Villepin.[citation needed]
In early September 2005, Chirac suffered an event that his doctors described as a "vascular incident". It was officially reported as a "minor stroke"[71] or a mild stroke (also known as atransient ischemic attack).[72] He recovered and returned to his duties soon afterward.
In a pre-recorded television broadcast aired on 11 March 2007, he announced, in a widely predicted move, that he would not choose to seek a third term as president. (In 2000 the constitution was amended to reduce the length of the presidential term to five years, so his second term was shorter than his first.)[73] "My whole life has been committed to serving France, and serving peace", Chirac said, adding that he would find new ways to serve France after leaving office. He did not explain the reasons for his decision.[74] He did not, during the broadcast, endorse any of the candidates running for election, but did devote several minutes of his talk to a plea against extremist politics that was considered a thinly disguised invocation to voters not to vote forJean-Marie Le Pen and a recommendation toNicolas Sarkozy not to orient his campaign so as to include themes traditionally associated with Le Pen.[75]
Shortly after leaving office, he launched theFondation Chirac[76] in June 2008. Since then it has been striving for peace through five advocacy programmes: conflict prevention, access to water and sanitation, access to quality medicines and healthcare, access to land resources, and preservation of cultural diversity. It supports field projects that involve local people and provide concrete and innovative solutions. Chirac chaired the jury for the Prize for Conflict Prevention awarded every year by his foundation.[77]
As a former president of France, he was entitled to a lifetime pension and personal security protection, and was anex officio member for life of theConstitutional Council.[78] He sat for the first time on the council on 15 November 2007, six months after leaving the presidency. Immediately after Sarkozy's victory, Chirac moved into a 180-square-metre (1,900 sq ft)duplex on theQuai Voltaire in Paris lent to him by the family of former Lebanese prime ministerRafik Hariri. During the Didier Schuller affair, the latter accused Hariri of having participated in illegal funding of theRPR's political campaigns, but the judge closed the case without further investigations.[79]
In Volume 2 of his memoirs published in June 2011, Chirac mocked his successorNicolas Sarkozy as "irritable, rash, impetuous, disloyal, ungrateful, and un-French".[80][81] Chirac wrote that he considered firing Sarkozy previously, and conceded responsibility in allowingJean-Marie Le Pen to advance in 2002.[82] A poll conducted in 2010 suggested Chirac was the most admired political figure in France, while Sarkozy was 32nd.[80]
On 11 April 2008, Chirac's office announced that he had undergone successful surgery to fit apacemaker.[83]
Chirac suffered from frail health and memory loss in later life. In February 2014 he was admitted to hospital because of pains related togout.[84][85] On 10 December 2015, Chirac was hospitalised in Paris for undisclosed reasons, although his state of health did not "give any cause for concern", he remained for about a week inICU.[86] According to his son-in-lawFrederic Salat-Baroux, Chirac was again hospitalised in Paris with alung infection on 18 September 2016.[87]
The day was declared anational day of mourning in France and a minute of silence was held nationwide at 15:00. Following the public ceremony, Chirac was buried atMontparnasse Cemetery, with only close family in attendance. Andorra announced three days of national mourning.[89] Lebanon declared the day of the ex-president's funeral national day of mourning.[90][91]
Chirac was a major supporter of the nation's film industry.[92]
Because of Jacques Chirac's long public career, he was often parodied or caricatured: Young Jacques Chirac is the basis of a young, dashing bureaucrat character in the 1976Asterix comic strip albumObelix and Co., proposing methods to quell Gallic unrest to elderly, old-style Roman politicians. Chirac was also featured inLe Bêbête Show as an overexcited, jumpy character.
Jacques Chirac was a favourite character ofLes Guignols de l'Info, a satiric latexpuppet show.[93] He was originally portrayed as a rather likeable, though overexcited, character; following the corruption allegations, however, he was depicted as a kind of dilettante and incompetent who pilfered public money and lied through his teeth. His character for a while developed asuperhero alter ego,Super Menteur ('super liar') to get him out of embarrassing situations.
In 1988, the bandParabellum lambasted Chirac in their songAnarchie en Chiraquie ("anarchy in Chirac-land"). In 1995,Zebda criticized Chirac's declarations on the "noise and smell" of immigrant families.[94]
Because of his alleged improprieties, Chirac was lambasted in a songChirac en prison ('Chirac in prison') by French punk bandLes Wampas, with a video clip made by theGuignols.[95] Similarly, the bandSinsemilia lambasted Chirac in the songBienvenue en Chiraquie ("Welcome to Chirac-land") as being the leader of a political mafia behaving outside of the laws applicable to normal citizenry. In June 2005, the band attracted media controversy when, on live television during midday news, it stopped early playing the gentleTout le bonheur du monde and instead started playingBienvenue en Chiraquie as a political gesture, before being cut early.[96]
At the invitation ofSaddam Hussein (thenvice-president of Iraq, butde facto dictator), Chirac made an official visit toBaghdad in 1975. Hussein approved a deal granting French oil companies a number of privileges plus a 23-percent share of Iraqi oil.[100] As part of this deal, France sold Iraq theOsirak MTRnuclear reactor, designed to test nuclear materials.
TheIsraeli Air Force alleged that the reactor's imminent commissioning was a threat to its security, and pre-emptively bombed the Osirak reactor on 7 June 1981, provoking considerable anger from French officials and the United Nations Security Council.[101]
The Osirak deal became a controversy again in 2002–2003, when an internationalmilitary coalition led by the United Statesinvaded Iraq and forcibly removed Hussein's government from power. France led several other European countries in an effort to prevent the invasion. The Osirak deal was then used by parts of the American media to criticise the Chirac-ledopposition to starting a war in Iraq,[102] despite French involvement in theGulf War.[103]
Chirac has been named in several cases of alleged corruption that occurred during his term as mayor, some of which have led tofelony convictions of some politicians and aides. However, a controversial judicial decision in 1999 granted Chirac immunity while he was president of France. He refused to testify on these matters, arguing that it would be incompatible with his presidential functions. Investigations concerning the running of Paris's city hall, the number of whose municipal employees increased by 25% from 1977 to 1995 (with 2,000 out of approximately 35,000 coming from theCorrèze region where Chirac had held his seat as deputy), as well as a lack of financial transparency (marchés publics) and the communal debt, were thwarted by the legal impossibility of questioning him as president.[104]
The conditions of theprivatisation of the Parisian water system acquired very cheaply by theCompagnie Générale des Eaux and theLyonnaise des Eaux, then directed byJérôme Monod, a close friend of Chirac, were also criticised. Furthermore, the satirical newspaperLe Canard enchaîné revealed the astronomical "food expenses" paid by the Parisian municipality (€15 million a year according to theCanard), expenses managed byRoger Romani (who allegedly destroyed all archives of the period 1978–93 during night raids in 1999–2000). Thousands of people were invited each year to receptions in the Paris city hall, while many political, media and artistic personalities were hosted in private flats owned by the city.[104]
Chirac's immunity from prosecution ended in May 2007, when he left office as president. In November 2007 a preliminary charge of misuse of public funds was filed against him.[105] Chirac is said to be the first former French head of state to be formally placed under investigation for a crime.[106] On 30 October 2009, a judge ordered Chirac to stand trial onembezzlement charges, dating back to his time as mayor of Paris.[107]
On 7 March 2011, he went on trial on charges of diverting public funds, accused of giving fictional city jobs to 28 activists from his political party while serving as themayor of Paris (1977–95).[108][109] Along with Chirac, nine others stood trial in two separate cases, one dealing with fictional jobs for 21 people and the other with jobs for the remaining seven.[108] The President ofUnion for a Popular Movement, who later served as France's Minister of Foreign Affairs,Alain Juppé, was sentenced to a 14-month suspended prison sentence for the same case in 2004.[110]
On 15 December 2011, Chirac was found guilty and given a suspended sentence of two years.[110] He was convicted of diverting public funds, abuse of trust and illegal conflict of interest. The suspended sentence meant he did not have to go to prison and took into account his age, health and status as a former head of state.[111] He did not attend the trial, since medical doctors deemed that his neurological problems damaged his memory.[110] His defence team decided not to appeal.[110][112]
During April and May 2006, Chirac's administration was beset by a crisis as his chosen prime minister,Dominique de Villepin, was accused of askingPhilippe Rondot, a top-level French spy, for a secret investigation into Villepin's chief political rival,Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2004. This matter has been called the secondClearstream Affair. On 10 May 2006, following a Cabinet meeting, Chirac made a rare television appearance to try to protect Villepin from the scandal and to debunk allegations that Chirac himself had set up a Japanese bank account containing 300 million francs in 1992 as Mayor of Paris.[113] Chirac said that "The Republic is not a dictatorship of rumours, a dictatorship of calumny."[114]
In 1956, Chirac marriedBernadette Chodron de Courcel, with whom he had two daughters:Laurence (4 March 1958 – 14 April 2016)[115] andClaude (born 6 December 1962). Claude was a long-termpublic relations assistant and personal adviser to her father,[116] while Laurence, who suffered fromanorexia nervosa in her youth, did not participate in her father's political activities.[117] Chirac was the grandfather of Martin Rey-Chirac by the relationship of Claude with FrenchjudokaThierry Rey.[citation needed] A former Vietnamese refugee,Anh Dao Traxel, is a foster daughter of Jacques and Bernadette Chirac.[118]
Chirac remained married, but had many other relationships.[119][120][121]
In 1954, Chirac presentedThe Development of the Port of New-Orleans, a short geography/economic thesis to theInstitut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po—), which he had entered three years before. The 182-page typewritten work, supervised by Professor Jean Chardonnet, is illustrated by photographs, sketches and diagrams.
Elected in 1967, re-elected in 1968, 1973, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1988, 1993: Member forCorrèze: March–April 1967 (became Secretary of State in April 1967), re-elected in 1968, 1973, but he remained a minister in 1976–1986 (became prime minister in 1986), 1988–95 (resigned to become President of the French Republic in 1995).
On 22 July 2003, Jacques Chirac was presented with the inaugural Kuala Lumpur World Peace Award by Malaysian Prime MinisterMahathir Mohamad at his office.[135]
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^abcd"Naufrage de laFrançafrique – Le président a poursuivi une politique privilégiant les hommes forts au pouvoir.",Stephen Smith inL'Histoire n°313, October 2006 (special issue on Chirac), p.70(in French)
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^"Archived copy".defense.gouv.fr. Archived fromthe original on 22 September 2020. Retrieved15 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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