Politics Overview of Chirac's 11 years of "reign" : a failure for France

Maciamo

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Here is a well written and well summarised article about the Chirac presidency.

The Economist : France's president - The man who deserves a red card

In short, Chirac failed on almost all the line. During his term, unemployment remained high, the public deficit rose by 10% (not as bad as Japan or the US during the same period though), many unfulfilled promises and lack of guts to reform the system...

He failed to promote the European Constitution in his own country, despite being a strong supporter of it. It can even be argued that his support for the Constitution led to the French to rethink their position and doubt its qualities, since Chirac's reputation was so low.

His few achievements are relatively minor. He somewhat reformed the health and pension system (until a more suitable reform). The rest is mainly words : he was the first French president to recognise the French state's involvment in the Jewish Holocaust; he created a slavery memorial day; he inaugurated the world's largest museum for non-European arts; he condemned racism and anti-semitism; he even excluded racist from the Bastille Day prisoners' pardon... Many words against racism, which ironically have boosted the less immigration-friendly opposition.

It is also during his hypocritical rule that French Muslim have shown the strongest signs of misadapatation and even revolted three times : for the ban on veils in public institutions, for the cartoons of Mohammed, and once "just for the fun of burning cars" (underlying deep socio-economical problems and lack of cultural integration).

His lenient tolerance and lack of action to tackle the problem is certainly what cost him the most popularity points. He was the only president to have such a bad rating at his second term election that extreme-rightist and near neo-nazi J-M Le Pen almost beat him ! Now, Sarkozy is heading the opinion polls for next year's presidential election because of his tougher stance on immigration and Muslim integration. As the Economist has it "If both Mr Chirac and Mr Sarkozy stood for the right in the first round next year, said a Paris-Match poll last week, Mr Chirac would score just 8%?\and Mr Le Pen 12%.".
 
The Economist has published a new article on Chirac's legacy, with the subtitle "It all went wrong".

There are debates about the coming presidential elections almost every night on French TV (esp. France 2 and France 5). They have made a few special debates on Chirac's presidency, and almost everyone agrees that it was a miserable failure.

He won't be remembered for much. At best for opposing Bush (another miserable failure) on the War in Iraq. Chirac is a live caricature of France. He used to be capable a few decades ago when he served as prime minister, but the age got the better of him during his presidency, characterised mostly by inactivity, laxism, unkept promises and underachievments.

Opinion polls have shown that if Chirac had decided to stand again for presidency, less than 2% of the French would have voted for him. How much more unpopular can an elected president get ?

I suppose it is because the French are so relieved to be rid of him that they talk so much about the new candidates.

For me, Chirac's biggest failures will have been :

- failing to convince the French people to accept the EU Constitution
- failing to reduce unemployment
- being too laxist regarding immigration and juvenile crime
- oppose the privatisation of the energy sector, fight to keep a strong Common Agricultural Policy, and other anti-liberal attitudes.

Chirac has been widely criticised by the French media as being a leftist at heart in a rightist's disguise (just the opposite of Tony Blair).
 
Funny, the BBC also had a similar special on Chirac's failures during his terms as president on the day he declared he would step down for good. It's about time, actually late, that he is gone for good.
 
Now, Chirac is being investigated for money laundering and other charges. If this is confirmed (as it will probably be), the ex-president will end up in prison.
 
A french former president will never end up in jail.
Chirac has been responsible for the paralysis of the country for 12 years. He is a great politician, maybe the best to run a election, but a poor president, in my opinion he has the least record of the fifth Republic on an equal footing with F.Mitterand.
He has always made me think about the French protectionism agrarian society.
 
President Chirac was a remarkable seasoned politician who was able to run any election but he was so a poor stateman. In my opinion he is on an equal footing with F Mitterand, both have the least records of the fifth republic.
 
as a PS president Francois Mitterand was an excellent president for France, France was highly respected and its generosity and humanism made it very respected internationally. By leftist criterias, Mitterand was a great president.
By any criterias left/right...Chirac was a poor president.

The next president has everything to outperform chriacs failures plus a hint of hidden fascism and media control.
 
Generosity

So funny. ?gIts generosity and humanism made it very respected internationally?h, maybe did you want to call the Mitterrand trait of being willing to give public money to his mistress?
 
But you're right Chirac was worst because in 1981 he preferred help Mitterand's election to back VGE.

Chirac is a socialist in disguise...
 
Now, Chirac is being investigated for money laundering and other charges. If this is confirmed (as it will probably be), the ex-president will end up in prison.

I very much doubt that.
 
Highly unlikely he will be sent to prison if convicted. These things have a way of being pushed under the rug.
 

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