Jacques Chirac, the prime minister of France, has had the same goal for more than a decade: to become the next president of his country.
He now appears closer to it than ever before.
In contrast to his poor showing in the 1981 presidential elections--he garnered only 17 percent of the vote, not enough to participate in the runoff--the 1986 conservative party victory paved the way for President Francois Miterrand's invitation to become prime minister. Political analysts see Chirac's acceptance as a way to position himself squarely in line for the coming presidential elections.
Ironically, Chirac's lukewarm support for fellow conservative Valery Giscard d'Estaing in 1981 is widely believed to have aided Mitterrand, a socialist candidate, to win the presidency. Today, Giscard d'Estaing and former Prime Minister Raymond Barre seem to be taking a back set in French politics. Recent opinion polls indicate that some 60 percent of the French population are satisfied with Chirac, which certainly bodes well for his chances in a presidential race.
Chirac is six feet tall and atheletically built. He has been called "pathologically healthy" and reportedly shakes an average of 3,000 hands a day during political campaigns.
The son of a businessman, he was married on March 16, 1956, to Bernadette Chodron de Courcel, the niece of Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel, an aide to Charles de Gaulle and a prominent diplomat. They have two daughters, Laurence and Claude.
In 1969, he was accused in his purchase of a seventeenth-century chateau for less than $100,000 and having it declared an historic monument shortly afterward. As a result, all work to repair the building was paid for by the state. This episode, though, apparently has not affected his career.
In describing him, most commentators note his dynamism and ambition, as well as his administrative abilities. Former president Georges Pompidou, in whose cabinet Chirac served between 1968 and 1973, called him affectionately "my bulldozer."
"If I wanted a tunnel built overnight between my Paris apartment and Matignon (the office of the prime minister), Chirac would find a way of doing it," Pompidou once said.
"No one can deny that he is a dynamic and ambitious person," remarked Denis Baudouin, a longtime friend and now the spokesman for and an advisor of the prime minister.
"For a man like Chirac, who was prime minister for the first time at the age of forty-two [from 1974 to 1976 when Giscard d'Estaing was president], it is natural to think about the next step, of becoming president," Baudouin added.
Friends and aides of Chirac insist that if he is often depicted as an ambitious, calculating politician, to those who know him, he is a warm-hearted person and a loyal friend.
"You do not see the real Chirac in
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