Posted on 05/30/2005 3:27:09 PM PDT by phoenix_004
WHAT a difference two years makes. In the spring of 2003, Jacques Chirac was striding the world stage, the idol of France and hero of many other nations for standing up to the “les Anglo-Saxons” and their invasion of Iraq.
The 72-year-old President looked out from the Elysée Palace yesterday on a field of ruins, his long political career blighted by a referendum in which the people took a sledgehammer to France’s role as pillar of the European Union.
“The emperor is naked,” les Echos, the business daily, said. “The Broken Dream of Jacques Chirac,” said Le Figaro, the most pro-Chirac of papers.
Under M Chirac France now finds itself in the European dog house after voters vented their wrath against the President, the political class and the modern world in general.
M Chirac now faces two years in the twilight before retirement, as Nicolas Sarkozy, his rival and leader of his Union for a Popular Movement, manoeuvres to succeed him.
Despite moderate reforms, unemployment has risen again to 10 per cent and real incomes have stagnated. M Chirac is blamed for breaking his 1995 campaign promises to “heal the social fracture”, the unemployment and exclusion that he diagnosed as the main French ill.
True to form, M Chirac went into the referendum campaign with the prevailing backlash against capitalism, now tagged as “liberalism”, and promised that the constitution would protect the country against the free-market jungle. After so many years in which M Chirac’s rhetoric clashed with reality, it was not surprising that a majority of voters did not buy his argument.
The people’s revenge has been cruel. M Chirac has been cut down in the one domain in which he was deemed him to excel: presenting France on the international stage.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Him and the horse he rode in on.
Now if Bill Clinton would move to Paris, the French would elect him President there. He would be the first non-Frenching speaking president they have had, I presume.
Good! He's a back stabbing scumbag!
Semper Fi
So they backstabbed their hero .... how is that unusual if for France?
They didn't wait a whole lot longer before they started backstabbing us after WWI, WWII or Korea; why would we expect anything different from a country of unwashed, immoral back-stabbing ingrates.
On behalf of the Eastern Bloc, Mr. Chirac, it appears you missed a great opportunity to shut up.
Ain't karma a ????? ?
"Cruel revenge" is their characterization of voting down a stupid idea?
This could be interpreted any number of ways...none of them good.
Now that has to be a threadbare publication.
Well, no one can out-sneer the French.
It is my understanding that a sitting French President cannot be prosecuted while in office. Now, maybe he can be prosecuted for his role in the oil-for-food scandal. He is up to it to his eyeballs.
I haven't paid much attention to the entire EU issue, and now find myself a bit "behind the curve" when it comes to understanding the geopolitical consequences of this no vote.
Anyone care to "edumacate" me on what it means for the future of Europe? If it is 300 pages long, I probably would have voted no to it too, just on principle.
A "business daily"? In France? Why would France have a "business daily".
Does Cuba or China or North Korea have a "business daily"? Weird....
I wonder if a certain politician with the first name of George has a smile on his face as wide as mine is at the moment?
Jacques Chirac? F*** 'im! Good ridance to bad rubbish.
They voted down a stupid idea for even more stupid reasons. These were anti-capitalist, socialist, leftist types who did this, with just a hint of right wing thrown in. Yes, they voted it down, but it doesn't mean that the French have turned over a new leaf or anything.
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