Jacques Chirac

President of France, 1995–2007

• Born: November 29, 1932
• Place of birth: Paris, France
• Died: September 26, 2019
• Place of death: Paris, France

Overview

As president of France, Jacques Chirac had a reputation both for political savvy and scandal. He served as France's head of state for two terms, from 1995 until 2007. A graduate of France's top civil-service training college, he had held important governmental positions since the early 1960s. Chirac previously served as French prime minister and mayor of Paris. In the 1950s, during the Algerian War of Independence, he served as a military officer.

Politically right of center, Chirac supported the ideology known as Gaullism, based on the charismatic and sometimes-populist leadership of the late French president Charles de Gaulle. Since de Gaulle's death in 1970, there has been a debate regarding what Gaullism really means. Most agree that one of its core elements is the maintenance of a vigorous and independent foreign policy for France. De Gaulle himself was known for supporting the so-called politique de grandeur (policy of grandeur), backed by an independent nuclear-weapons force, which helped solidify France's historical legacy and influence in world affairs. Other elements of Gaullism include social conservatism and dirigisme, or state control of the economy.

De Gaulle's own party was the Union des Democrates pour la Republique (Union of Democrats for the Republic), which existed under various names from 1958 until 1976. It was popularly known as the Gaullist Party. Chirac was a member of the party Rassemblement pour la Republique (Rally for the Republic), which he founded in 1976 as a successor to the Gaullist Party.

Yet Chirac demonstrated flexibility in his political ideology as well. In fact, his critics often accused him of having had no real philosophy, other than self-interest. As a young man, he flirted with communism, but he later reinvented himself as a staunch conservative, then later as a centrist and Gaullist. During his career, he both supported and opposed European integration and free-market economics.

Chirac's ethics also often came under question by his critics. During his almost twenty-year tenure as mayor of Paris (1977–95), he was the target of five criminal investigations relating to political corruption. Though evidence allegedly existed that implicated Chirac in the scandals, he survived politically, in part because of presidential immunity from prosecution. After he retired from politics, however, he was prosecuted for one such incident. He was convicted of diverting public funds and abusing public trust in 2011 and was given a suspended sentence.

In 1995, Chirac was elected to the presidency for a seven-year term. He was reelected in 2002 to a five-year term.

Chirac came into frequent friction with the United States, particularly over Middle East policy. He strongly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, expressing concerns over the postwar reconstruction.

Early Life and Political Career

Jacques René Chirac, born November 29, 1932, was the only child of a prosperous Parisian family. His father, Abel François Chirac, worked as a banker and later an aircraft-industry executive. After attending prestigious local schools in Paris, Chirac entered university at the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Paris Institute of Political Studies). He graduated in 1954 with a degree in political science. In 1957, after his army service, Chirac entered the École Nationale d'Administration (National School of Administration), a top graduate school for civil-service training. He graduated in 1959.

In March 1956, Chirac married Bernadette Chodron de Courcel, the aristocratic niece of Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel, a diplomat and aide to Charles de Gaulle. This connection later served Chirac well in advancing his career, as it gained him a place in the French president’s official family. Chirac and his wife had two daughters, Laurence and Claude. The latter eventually became a public-relations consultant on her father’s staff and one of his closest advisers.

Chirac was drafted into the military in 1956 and served until 1957. As an officer, he served in Algeria during its war of independence from France.

Graduate degree in hand, Chirac entered the civil service in 1959. Thanks to his ability and hard work, as well as his Gaullist connections by marriage, his political ascent was rapid. In 1962, when he was just twenty-nine, he became head of the personal staff of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, who nicknamed Chirac “Le Bulldozer” because of his political skill and ability to accomplish things.

Chirac was elected to the French parliament, the National Assembly, in 1967. Pompidou, who became president in 1969, fostered Chirac’s career and gave him important appointments in various ministries. These included positions in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

In 1974, Chirac became prime minister under President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, a non-Gaullist. Chirac resigned after only two years and established himself as head of the “neo-Gaullist” movement, the political successors to the late de Gaulle, who had died in 1970. In 1976, Chirac established his Rally for the Republic (RFR) party and sought to expand his influence among French conservatives.

In 1977, Chirac was elected mayor of Paris. This position, which he held for eighteen years, gave him a significant power base. Again, he became known as someone who could get things done. During this period of his career, he took a strongly nationalist stance on foreign policy, criticizing Giscard's pro-European policies. Chirac unsuccessfully opposed Giscard in the 1981 presidential election, a move that gave the victory to Socialist candidate François Mitterrand.

President of the French Republic

President Mitterrand appointed Chirac prime minister in 1986, after the conservatives gained a small parliamentary majority. During this period, Chirac continued to hold office as mayor of Paris. This power-sharing arrangement was, however, uncomfortable; Chirac opposed the incumbent in the 1988 election but was again defeated. He stepped down as prime minister and continued to serve as mayor.

Electoral success finally came in 1995, when Chirac succeeded in his third bid for the presidency. He defeated Edouard Balladur, another Gaullist, as well as the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin. The latter became Chirac's prime minister when the leftists won large victories in the 1997 parliamentary elections. This power-sharing arrangement lasted until 2002.

Chirac's first term as president was marked by several economic and international crises. He had won office on a conservative platform that included lower taxes and reduced government control of the economy. But when he and Prime Minister Alain Juppé introduced cost-cutting measures for the railroads, the unpopular move provoked a general transportation strike. Chirac was eventually forced to back down from the proposal.

He also created international controversy in 1995 when he decided to resume nuclear testing on the Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia, in the Pacific Ocean. Environmental groups such as Greenpeace roundly criticized this move, and Chirac announced in 1996 that France would abide by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Chirac won reelection in 2002, this time to a five-year term; in 2000, a referendum had changed the presidential term of office from seven to five years. Many people around the world were concerned by the strong showing in the initial election of far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, who finished ahead of Jospin. Le Pen, then leader of the National Front, had extremely anti-immigration views that many people considered racist. Despite his problems in the main election, Chirac won easily in the runoff because of fears about Le Pen, who received less than 20 percent of the vote.

In 2005, Chirac suffered a minor stroke, but the incident did not impact his ability to serve as president. That year, widespread civil unrest occurred in France in and around the suburbs of Paris following the death of two young immigrant boys at the hands of French police. Widespread violence occurred, as did hundreds of car fires, vandalism, and destruction of property. Young people in poor neighborhoods were expressing their frustration over the lack of jobs and what they regarded as the government's disinterest in establishing new employment initiatives. Chirac maintained his support of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin throughout the period of turmoil.

Post-Presidency

Chirac announced his decision not to seek reelection to the office of president on March 11, 2007. Following the presidential election in April and May, he was succeeded as president by Nicolas Sarkozy. In 2008, after leaving office, he founded the Fondation Chirac, an organization that works for peace via advocacy programs in areas such as conflict prevention and access to clean water and health care. While some would later look back on his presidency and criticize his inability to bring largely any attempted reforms to fruition, many would fondly remember his ability to connect with and understand voters from all sides of the political spectrum as well as his committed support for the European Union.

In 2011, Chirac was prosecuted on charges of diverting public funds and abusing public trust while serving as mayor of Paris. He was convicted in December 2011 and given a two-year suspended sentence. He did not attend the trial, as his doctors said he suffered from memory lapses due to neurological problems. The suspended sentence took his ill health into account, as well as his age and his status as a former head of state.

Following his conviction, Chirac's health continued to deteriorate. He was reported to have a degenerative neurological disorder, and in December 2015 he spent two weeks in a hospital in Paris for unspecified health reasons, which his family attributed to fatigue. In September 2016, Chirac was rushed back from a holiday in Morocco to a hospital in Paris, this time for a lung infection, and remained hospitalized for nearly a month. He died at his home in Paris on September 26, 2019, at the age of eighty-six. After thousands of people lined up to view Chirac's coffin on September 29, a national day of mourning was held on September 30.

Bibliography

Chazan, David. "French Ex-President Jacques Chirac in Hospital with Lung Infection." The Telegraph, 18 Sept. 2016, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/18/french-ex-president-jacques-chirac-in-hospital-with-lung-infecti/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.

Chirac, Jacques. My Life in Politics. With Jean-Luc Barre, translated by Catherine Spencer, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Clarity, James F., and John Tagliabue. "Jacques Chirac, Who Led France Envisioning European Unity, Is Dead at 86." The New York Times, 26 Sept. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/obituaries/jacques-chirac-dead.html. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

"French Ex-President Jacques Chirac Guilty of Corruption." BBC News, BBC, 15 Dec. 2011, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16194089. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.

"Jacques Chirac Found Guilty of Corruption." The Guardian, 3 May 2011, www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/15/jacques-chirac-guilty-corruption. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.

Leicester, John. "Chirac Leaving Stage Admired and Scorned." The Washington Post, 11 Mar. 2007, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/11/AR2007031101091.html. Accessed 7 Dec. 2017.