Long-serving Chirac bids adieu

French President Jacques Chirac, whose political career spanned 40 years, steps down Wednesday as Nicolas Sarkozy takes the presidency.

from the May 16, 2007 edition

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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."

While the French were ready to replace Chirac, they have mixed emotions as he leaves. One inescapable fact about Chirac is that, for better or worse, he has always been on scene, something like a public utility. He rose under Charles De Gaulle, was a protégé of Georges Pompidou, and battled French heavyweights like Valéry Giscard D'Estaing and François Mitterrand. He comes from a generation of elites who kept a steady hand, and "didn't spend all his time taking credit in front of the cameras," the cabinet adviser says.

"Chirac has been here so long, we say he is 'like the furniture,' " says Yves Marie Laulan, an economist who worked with Chirac and wrote a book on him. "Jacques was ... easygoing, and he worked hard not to antagonize any section of France. That's an achievement in a society like ours."

Chirac's defenders say he can't be blamed for major world shifts since 1995 that have deeply affected France. Globalization, the Asian financial crisis, the expansion of Europe from 12 to 27 members, 9/11 and the rise of China, are not something "Chirac invented," says one scholar.

But Chirac is faulted as having been slow to adjust to the implications of those events. "France is lagging, and this is the work of Chirac," says Mr. Laulan. "He didn't have the guts to face the labor unions. He didn't want to antagonize, or face a million people in the street, so he left that job to Sarkozy."

Biographers say Chirac was deeply marked by his time in Algeria, where he was wounded. France was losing its empire. It created a crisis not unlike that felt by the "Vietnam generation."

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