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Chirac - I Will Not Run Again

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  • Chirac - I Will Not Run Again

    Chirac officially announces he will not re-seek the French presidency:

    Chirac: I will not run again
    • Chirac urges nation to reject "extremism, racism, anti-Semitism...rejection"
    • Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen calls Chirac departure "a great joy"
    • Chirac says he would have liked to have modernized France more rapidly
    • Nicolas Sarkozy, Segolene Royal, Francois Bayrou lead contenders for president


    PARIS, France (Reuters) -- French President Jacques Chirac announced on Sunday he would not seek re-election next month, bowing out of frontline politics after a 45-year career that consisted of symbolic gestures as much as concrete policies.

    Chirac has served as president since 1995. His decision to stand aside marks the end of an era for France, clearing the way for a new generation of politicians.

    "I will not seek your backing for a new mandate," the 74-year-old said in a televised address to the nation.

    Chirac will perhaps be best remembered outside France for his denunciation of U.S. policy in Iraq and his determination to maintain his country's leading role in international affairs.

    But on the domestic front he introduced few meaningful reforms and leaves behind a difficult legacy for his successor, with the French economy underachieving and social tensions simmering in deprived suburbs.
    His natural heir in the conservative camp, presidential frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy, said on Sunday he hoped to receive Chirac's endorsement.
    But he also delivered a stern rebuke to his one-time mentor by promising a new approach to politics.

    "I will not prevaricate with the French, I will not lie to them, I will not betray them," Sarkozy said in an interview published in Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

    All the three leading contenders to succeed Chirac -- Sarkozy of the ruling UMP party, Socialist Segolene Royal and centrist Francois Bayrou -- are in their 50s and all have pledged to break with the politics of the past 25 years.
    "I want to be the candidate who says very clearly to the French what he will do if they give him their trust," said Sarkozy. "That is my speciality. I am therefore different from Jacques Chirac."

    Sarkozy is leading in the polls ahead of the April-May election, but he faces a tight race against Royal and Bayrou.

    Opinion polls have indicated for months that Chirac would have been trounced if he had run for a record third mandate, but he had kept a resolute silence over his plans to avoid being regarded as a lame duck president.

    Out of touch

    The last survivor of a political generation that started out in the postwar governments of General Charles de Gaulle, Chirac's career was dogged by allegations of corruption, which he always denied, dating from his 18 years as mayor of Paris.

    During his reign, he ended compulsory military service, played an important role in ending the Yugoslav civil war in the 1990s and was the first president to acknowledge that France's World War Two Vichy regime had assisted in the Holocaust.

    He also played an important role in ending the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s. He won widespread popularity in the Arab world for standing up to President Bush over the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The move infuriated Washington by representing what former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called "Old Europe."

    However, Chirac was regarded as increasingly out of touch on domestic issues and suffered a major defeat when voters rejected the planned European constitution in 2005, pushing the European Union into crisis and weakening his international standing.

    And his attempts at reforming the French economy and tackling chronic unemployment met with little success.

    "Overall ... it's seen as a very weak presidency, especially in the second term," said Daniela Schwarzer, an expert on France at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

    At one point, Chirac had the worst popularity ratings of any French president, but his support has climbed as his retirement nears.

    In Europe itself, he held tightly to the traditional Franco-German alliance, particularly with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and refused to surrender the lavish subsidies enjoyed by the French farming sector.

    His mandate ends on May 17 and it is not clear if he will still play a role in public life after that, or whether he will withdraw quietly to his rural retreat in Correze with his wife Bernadette.

    "There is, without doubt, a life after politics. Until death," he said in a television interview last month.
    Source: Chirac bows out of politics with appeal against extremism - CNN.com
    "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

  • #2
    Good for Chirac.

    He saved himself the humiliation of being defeated hands down!


    "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

    I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

    HAKUNA MATATA

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    • #3
      Well it was pretty obvious he isn't going to run since he knows that running would probably give him a humiliating defeat.
      Those who can't change become extinct.

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