It is said that age makes you a capitalist. With the priorities and pursuits to match. Jacques Chirac was already “old” (though not by French politician standards) when he took on the role of Mayor of Paris in 1977 at the age of forty-five. Yet it seemed every so often, flickers of relating to his youth constituency would flash more strongly than his conservative Gaullist predilections (even if he vacillated almost every election with regard to which political lines to remain “loyal” to).
In the 50s and early 60s, Chirac was a member of the French Communist party, another telling sign of youth factoring into a rebellious spirit (even if communism was garden variety in France in this epoch). One that managed to land him a position as the head of then Prime Minister Georges Pompidou’s personal staff. It was in this capacity that his long-standing nickname, “Le Bulldozer,” came to be, a tongue-in-cheek epithet that referred to his abrasive manner in cutting through the bullshit and getting straight to the point. As the protégé of Pompidou, he was advised to run as a Gaullist in the National Assembly in 1967, miraculously securing himself the role of Minister of Social Affairs. With the unprecedented upheaval of Mai ‘68 concentrated in Paris, Chirac was an instrumental mediator in helping the protests end. Of course, he was still able to relate to the youths of France then.
In the 70s, his escalation from Minister of Agriculture (at which time he was a strong advocate for the rights of farmers) to Minister of the Interior were further stepping stones to an eventual ascent to the position of Prime Minister under President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, in an election that would reveal just how much of a jeune loup he was, willing to betray his former allegiance to the Gaullists for the sake of remaining in power when it became clear that the Gaullist candidates of the moment were not going to get a win. In thanks for Giscard d’Estaing making him Prime Minister, Chirac quickly betrayed him, for the two didn’t take long to clash as the latter still attempted to appease the Gaullists (likely wanting to have his cake and eat it too). Chirac finally resigned in 1976, stating that Giscard d’Estaing would not grant him the authority befitting a Prime Minister. It was thus that he made his bid for Mayor of Paris in 1977, still trying to become president throughout the 80s but losing to friend and leftist François Mitterand.
That Chirac’s conservatism (in the vein of Giuliani in his early days of mayordom in New York) could somehow still leave a tinge of the man who was a communist and worked to fight for students’ and farmer’s rights was at odds with a public persona that still sought to make him relatable. In fact, as mayor of Paris, his gruff yet affable persona was almost akin to Ed Koch’s. Arguably the most “modern” politician in France at that time, he happily granted answers to questionnaires in what would be considered “tabloid rags” in the style of Teen Beat, citing his love for Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and Grace Kelly in the categories of favorite American actors, as well as Madonna as his favorite American singer. His enthusiasm for the latter was corroborated in 1987, when she arrived in France for the Who’s That Girl Tour. While in Paris her show at the Parc de Sceaux drew in 130,000 spectators, remaining the largest crowd at any concert in French history. As such, the mayor of Nice at the time, Jacques Médecin (who himself would be riddled with political scandals by the time he was eventually apprehended in Uruguay), tried to cancel her subsequent show at the Stade de l’Ouest in Nice. Chirac vetoed that plan, in a prime instance of his remaining ability to have his finger on the pulse of what the French youth wanted. It was arguably the last instance of such.
When at last achieving his long-time ambition of becoming president in 1995 by campaigning as a “middle of the road” politician (hoping to bridge the social divide), it seemed he couldn’t live up to all the things he had put into motion already as Paris’ mayor (including perhaps most famously with the automated Motocrotte designed to pick up dog shit from the streets). While he might have done some good as mayor, his penchant for corruption outshone those acts, coming back to haunt him after his presidency came to an end and he was no longer capable of playing the “immunity” card to corruption charges. Among such that included using public money to supply imaginary jobs for his cronies, as well as a healthy dose of clientelism (the favorite term of his critics, despite the fact that it did incentivize more businesses to stay in Paris at the time).
In another strange bout of irony, Chirac’s primary cultural contribution to Paris was the Musée du Quai Branly, a museum emphasizing the indigenous arts and culture of non-Europeans. For someone so fervently European (to the point where he believed voting yes on the Maastricht Treaty was necessary in order not to seem “anti-European”), it is a strange bestowal indeed. And then there was his landmark public apology on behalf of the French government to the Jews it was responsible for deporting during the Vichy years of 1940-1944. Where even Mitterand declared all the way up until 1994, “The Republic had nothing to do with this. I do not believe France is responsible,” Chirac declared, “France committed the irreparable.”
In spite of briefly gaining a nod from the youth of France in the mid-90s when he spoke of needing to mend the political divide in the country, by 2002, he was the target of an assassination attempt and by 2006, he was being deemed “the most unpopular occupant of the Elysée Palace in the fifth republic’s history.” A friendship with Vladimir Putin further stripped him of any “cool” cachet he might have had among liberals in the past, long ago at this point in time. As he became more aged and therefore more riddled with health problems including hearing and memory loss (convenient for being tried for corruption), he fell increasingly to the sidelines. Even so, he remained vocal enough to express his contempt for his successor, Nicholas Sarkozy.
The conundrum of Chirac’s political allegiance to just about any and every shade of liberalism and conservatism is perhaps what made him the most “politician-y” of all. It probably helped that he married Bernadette Chodron de Courcel, better known as Bernadette Chirac. From an affluent and devoutly Catholic Gaullist family, her connections and money certainly provided a cushion for Chirac from the outset. Even if Chirac himself wasn’t exactly struggling (but certainly, coming from a lineage of peasants wasn’t as grand as Bernadette’s bloodline to the average French politician).
His notoriety for being blunt also manifested in such aphorisms as, “You can’t trust people who cook as badly as [the British]. After Finland, it’s the country with the worst food,” and “The relations between France and the United States have been, are, and will always be conflictive and excellent. It is the nature of things… The U.S. finds France unbearably pretentious. And we find the U.S. unbearably hegemonic. There will always be sparks, but not fire.”
But perhaps it was this explanation of his political career that most succinctly summed up his constant knack for reinvention in the form of flip-flopping to whatever side might take him over: “When I was elected, I was 32, and I joined the government right away. Then I just stayed forever. Governments changed, but I stayed, along with the furniture.”
