-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,683008,00.html
}}}>Begin
Chirac charms a path back to �lys�e palace
Jospin sliding in the polls as first round approaches
Jon Henley in Paris
Friday April 12, 2002
The Guardian
After 40 years Jacques Chirac's election machine is nothing if not well-oiled. And in
this, the outgoing French president's final campaign, it seems to have started firing
on all cylinders.
Predictions based on a range of recent polls show him significantly clear of his
Socialist rival Lionel Jospin, the prime minister, in the first round ballot on Sunday
week and easing ahead in the run-off.
The polls put Mr Chirac's share of the first-round vote at between 22% and 24%,
while Mr Jospin, suffering from his stiff and scholarly public persona, has slipped as
low as 17%, fewer than five points clear of the third- placed Jean-Marie Le Pen, the
far-right leader.
Mr Chirac seems to be hitting his stride, charming his audiences in a clever
campaign as fast, flexible and emotionally engaging as the candidate himself.
With almost nothing to boast of after seven years at the �lys�e palace, the outgoing
president knows that he will not be re-elected on his record. And with little to
distinguish his programme from his rival's, his policies will not make the difference
either.
Helped by his presidential immunity, he has managed to brush aside allegations of
sleaze during his days as mayor of Paris with such success that corruption is not an
issue in this election.
So he has opted for a "reactive" campaign. Except for a few big provincial rallies,
nothing is planned more than three days in advance, and the emphasis is on his
personal qualities: his warmth, his sympathy, his stature, his concern for his people.
The tactic allows Mr Chirac, 69, to exploit to the full the day's events: an impromptu
visit to a synagogue as attacks on Jewish targets in France continue; a lightning tour
of a sensitive suburb after another incident of youth violence; a visit to a mosque to
"let my heart speak" about the situation in the Middle East.
"He's just so NICE," enthused Marie Lehuet, 59, a retired hairdresser who gave up
her Wednesday evening to attend a rally in a chilly hangar outside the western town
of Poitiers.
"Look at him: that smile, that warmth he has. He's always had a special way with
people. It's got nothing to do with politics at all."
That night, before an audience by turns rapt and uproarious, Mr Chirac pushed all
the right buttons with his ageing and mainly rural audience: crime, violence, health,
education, pensions, reform of the state, equality of opportunity, tax cuts, and the
need for a proper policy for la France profonde.
This kind of fast and furious campaign is entirely in keeping with his personality.
Born
in November 1932, the son of a banker and financial adviser, he was a bright but
wilful boy (his CV boasts the entries "expelled from school" and "ran away to sea").
A spell at the prestigious Sciences Po - political science college - sparked an
interest
in politics, and army service in Algeria marked him deeply, his biographers say.
There he gained a taste for swift decisive action, for - in his words - "doing
something, anything, when you need to get out of trouble".
Then came the elite �cole Nationale d'Administration and a familiar path to power.
He rose in the wake of the late President Georges Pompidou, was given his first
ministerial job at 34, and became prime minister under Val�ry Giscard d'Estaing. By
the late 1970s he was a political heavyweight.
He has many paradoxes. A jovial bon vivant, he likes westerns and martial music
and prefers beer to fine wine, sausages to haute cuisine.
His many critics claim that unlike De Gaulle, Giscard or Mitterrand, he is not a
visionary, has no analysis of how France or the world will develop, no strategic plan,
no consistent programme, no deeply held convictions.
Everything is about human contact, spur-of-the-moment action, the knockout blow to
an opponent. "Sympathetic and a great appetite for work," the future president's
history teacher wrote in a school report. "But more spontaneous than given to
reflection."
Half a century later those qualities seem to be giving him the edge over Mr Jospin.
As Gaullism's grand old dame, Marie-France Garaud, once rather cruelly said:
"Chirac's a racehorse. He'll jump whatever hurdles are in his path, he'll jump and
jump. He'll keep on jumping, even if you take the hurdles away."
Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
End<{{{
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