biography
| name: |
Chirac, Jacques (René)
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pronunciation:
[shirak]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1932– )
|
| biography:
| French prime minister (1974–6, 1986–8) and president (1995– ). Educated in Paris, he became a civil servant, and was first elected to the National Assembly in 1967. He gained extensive governmental experience before being appointed prime minister by Giscard d'Estaing. He resigned over differences with d'Estaing and broke away to lead the Gaullist Party. Mayor of Paris since 1977, he was an unsuccessful candidate in the 1981 and 1988 presidential elections, but won in 1995. His presidency began controversially when, in June 1995, France resumed nuclear testing in the French atoll of Mururoa during a worldwide moratorium, bringing international condemnation and committing Chirac to a future test-ban treaty. Strikes and rulings over corruption while Chirac was mayor of Paris increased his and his government's unpopularity and, in the 1997 election, the Juppé government was rejected in favour of the Socialists under his political rival, Lionel Jospin. In 2000 he campaigned for a Franco-German ‘top-tier’ alliance within the European Union, and called for a European constitution. He won a landslide victory in the second round of the 2002 presidential election after voters surged to the polls to keep out the far-right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen. |
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