Profile: Jacques Chirac

History may not be kind to President Jacques Chirac

By Hugh Schofield in Paris

Jacques Chirac is 69 and this is his fourth presidential campaign.

Apart from a seven-year term as head of state, he has also served twice as prime minister - the first time an astonishing 28 years ago.

He founded his own party - the RPR - in 1976 and for 18 years held the powerful post of Paris mayor.

Inspired by General de Gaulle to enter public life, he was already economy minister in the late 1960s, and he has had spells in both the national and European parliaments.

Jacques Chirac is a political beast par excellence.

Mr Chirac has a popular and enduring image with voters

The question is: Is he any good at it?

Of course on one level, the answer is a self-evident yes.

You do not spend 40 years building a career with culminates in the highest office in the land without possessing certain gifts.

He is what the French call "un bon gars" - a grand lad.

His legendary appetite, his hearty beam, his past reputation with the ladies, his loving wife and daughters, his penchant for sumo wrestling - all have helped create a public image which is popular and enduring.

Indeed it is surely a testament to his appeal as a seasoned campaigner that even now - with age and scandal counting against him - he stands an even chance of getting another presidential term.

So if longevity is the only criterion of success, mr Chirac is indeed a master.

But there are other benchmarks, and there history will be less kind.

What for example does Chirac believe in? No-one is sure.

At one point an anti-European Gaullist, he became a champion of the single currency.

Social fractures

He fought the last election on a soft-left platform promising to "heal the social fracture," but then appointed a finance minister of the 'Thatcherite' right.

He exploded nuclear bombs in the Pacific, then came over all green.

It is surely a testament to his appeal as a seasoned campaigner that even now - with age and scandal counting against him - he stands an even chance of getting another presidential term.

"Chirac wolfs down everyone else's ideas, and then - phut!" said former environment minister Brice Lalonde.

One of his nicknames is Chameleon Bonaparte. Another is La Girouette - the weathervane.

Then what of his political nous?

In 1997, for no apparent earthly cause, Mr Chirac dissolved the National Assembly whose right wing majority had another three years to run.

His supporters promptly lost the election, and Mr Chirac had to spend the last five years of his presidency sitting on his hands. Some nous.

Finally there is the small question of ethics.

Mr Chirac has been accused of presiding over a system of illegal party financing while he was mayor of Paris.

He also stands accused of paying out bundles of dubious cash for holidays for his family and friends.

Injured innocence

But to persistent demands that he at least give evidence in the affair, Mr Chirac adopts a tone of injured innocence, and protests that - much as he would like to testify - his presidential office prevents it.

Questions have been asked about his ethical behaviour

It is not very convincing, and clearly most French people don't believe him.

No-one was surprised earlier this year when the satirical puppet show "Les Guignols" dropped all pretence and created a Chirac alter-ego called simply Superliar.

There is a certain Chirac look that anyone who has seen him on television knows well.

It is a look of deep, deep sincerity - emphasised by a furrowing of his massive forehead and a pause as he chooses some new formula of crushing sententiousness.

He looks the interviewer in the eye and tells her that the reason he is running again is the incredible "passion" that he feels for the French.

But if Mr Chirac loses - and if the magistrates home in - many will be the voter who pinches himself and asks what on earth it was they ever saw in the man.