Long-serving Chirac bids adieu

When outgoing French President Jacques Chirac led a French Army unit in Algeria's guerrilla war in 1956, Tony Blair was 3 years old. When Mr. Chirac attended Harvard summer school, hitchhiked around America, and worked at a Howard Johnson's in 1950, the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, had not been born. Chirac can discuss ancient Oriental art, Japanese sumo wrestling, and farming for hours. He has been precocious, ambitious, a loner, prickly, twice prime minister of France, mayor of Paris for 18 years, president for the past 12 – and today, he is leaving.

Chirac's departure after 40 years as a leader marks a clear shift from a breed of cold war political giants who embodied a stoic loyalty and duty to a country that has long viewed itself as an exceptional carrier of "civilization" and its virtues.

In the past decade, Chirac did not wear exceptionally well. He became synonymous overseas with French recalcitrance, and known at home as a passive steward of frustration and decline. France's economy dropped to 15th from 4th since Chirac took over in 1995. In the recent elections, experts agree, Chirac's interior minister and opponent Mr. Sarkozy, ran against his boss's record by promising tough reforms on which Chirac never delivered. And the president may face more problems as he leaves. Judicial officials said in March that Chirac will be questioned over corruption investigations dating to when he was mayor of Paris.

Iraq opposition welcomed at home

In America, the tall Frenchman may best be known for his thumbs down on the Iraq war. In January 2003, as the White House signaled a nonnegotiable intent to displace Saddam Hussein, Chirac tried and failed to challenge the "unilateral intervention" of the US.

"There really is a turning point," says François Heisbourg, special adviser to the Foundation for Strategic Studies in Paris. "Before January 2003, the French policy under Chirac, like the British policy under Blair, was liberal interventionism, seen in Bosnia and Kosovo. Chirac was ambivalent about Iraq. But when his advisers were told ... the war had been decided no matter what the Security Council did ... that French views weren't important … Chirac got angry."

Chirac and France paid heavily for that opposition, and for trying to make Europe a counterweight to America – though Chirac's lone stand against the White House is still very popular here.

"The French like someone who will stand up and tell the US or China, you are wrong," says a cabinet adviser. "The French have a point of view that the left and right both agree on. We want someone to articulate that. Chirac did."

Charles Kupchan, Europe director at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, says Chirac's career can't be reduced to Iraq. The leader may be faulted for his comfort with the status quo, but gets an "unjustifiably bad rap for his role in the Iraq buildup," he says. "Chirac happens to have been correct on Iraq. …. Chirac and [former German Chancellor Gerhard] Schröder were right to object.... It is also interesting that neither fared well politically after that."

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