Patrick Sheldon
Role Profile: Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac
was born November 29th, 1932, in
Paris. He graduated from the
French
University, Lycee Louis-le-Grand in
1950. He later attended Institute d’ Administration in 1959 and temporarily
enrolled in Harvard. He has a long
line of achievements following his college years including participation in the
French military. Chirac then got
his first experience working with politics when he served as an auditor in the
French government’s general accounting office. He later held several public offices
during his lifetime, including member of the French National Assembly,
Agriculture and Rural Development Minister, Interior Minister, Prime Minister,
and Mayor of Paris. Chirac was
first elected as the President of France in May of 1995. The domestic plans of
President Chirac and his prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, include cutting
income tax, making the 35-hour week more flexible and building new prisons to
combat crime. However, Chirac has
been unable to implement very much change in domestic policy, largely due to an
unhappy electorate among the French population. Furthermore, the role of a
president in
France is not
the same as it is in the United
States, as the Prime Minister is, for the most
part, the leader of domestic affairs.
Nevertheless, it appears that Chirac has not done much to improve the
domestic problems with his nation. Unemployment, for instance, remains
drastically high in
France, and
allegations of corruption have caused Chirac’s recent ratings to plunge in
public opinion polls. However,
Chirac has been much more vocal and influential in his work involving foreign
affairs, particularly in the Middle East. Chirac has been proven to be extremely
ambitious and he clearly wants the
France to be one
of the leaders of Middle Eastern affairs.
He had a long lasting friendship with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat,
and his ties toward the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict continue to display that
he tends to agree with Arabs more than the Israelis. He has spoken in favor of
creating an independent Palestinian state. However, he has participated in
several peace conferences between the two sides, attempting to serve as a sort
of third-party mediator. Chirac has
also weakened French ties with George Bush, Tony Blair, and the majority of the
members of the European Union due to his lashing out against War in Iraq and in
the Middle East. Jacques Chirac
also, for a time, considered Saddam Hussein a personal friend. Chirac’s negative relations with the
Jewish community do not end with the Israelis, as it is widely spoken that
France is marred
by anti-Semitism. However, Chirac
says that his chief concern with
Israel is their
relationship with the United
States.
He fears that this alliance will bully surrounding Middle Eastern
nations. Outside of Israel, Chirac
also has concerns with other areas of the Middle East. He has spoken out against terrorism,
especially in
Algeria, which
is a former French colony.
Furthermore, he has tried to enhance French relations with other major
nations in the Middle East, such as
Egypt and
Saudi
Arabia.