Jacques Chirac
Jacques Chirac was President of France from 1995 to 2007, mayor of Paris for eighteen years, and twice prime minister, and was later convicted of corruption. Born in Paris in 1932 to a bank executive, he studied at Sciences Po and the ENA, spent a summer at Harvard, and worked briefly as a soda-fountain attendant at Howard Johnson's. He served as an officer in Algeria and volunteered to stay. He became a protégé of Georges Pompidou, who nicknamed him the bulldozer, and held agriculture and interior portfolios before becoming prime minister under Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in 1974. He resigned in 1976, founded the Gaullist RPR, and became mayor of Paris in 1977, a base he held until 1995. He served as prime minister again from 1986 to 1988 under François Mitterrand in the first cohabitation, privatising extensively. Elected president in 1995 after two failed attempts, he resumed nuclear testing in the Pacific, drawing international condemnation, and recognised the French state's responsibility for the deportation of Jews under Vichy — the first president to do so, reversing decades of official position. He dissolved parliament in 1997 and lost, spending five years cohabiting with a Socialist government. He was re-elected in 2002 with eighty-two per cent after Jean-Marie Le Pen reached the runoff. His most consequential decision was refusing to join the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and threatening a Security Council veto, which was popular in France and caused a lasting rift with Washington. He was convicted in 2011 of embezzlement over fictitious jobs at Paris city hall, receiving a suspended sentence. He died in 2019.
- Lived: 1932 CE – 2019 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: President of France (1995-2007), Prime Minister (1974-1976, 1986-1988)
