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| Europe |
| Media ridicules Chirac |
| 2006-06-27 |
| Jacques Chirac woke up on Tuesday morning to face one of the worst fates that can befall a head of state: widespread ridicule. France’s 73-year-old president had hoped his rare televised interview on Monday night would restore some lost authority and breathe fresh life into his embattled government. Instead, his speech was greeted by resounding boos from the media, reinforcing the atmosphere of fin de règne that has dogged his second term in office. “You don’t change a losing team,” said Libération’s front page, a sarcastic reference to Mr Chirac’s repeated support for Dominique de Villepin, his enfeebled and unpopular prime minister. Pierre Giacometti, analyst at Ipsos, said Mr Chirac “never stood a chance” of regaining public confidence with his plea that Mr de Villepin and his government had been judged unfairly. The press mercilessly poked fun at the president’s gaffes, such as his reference to the Airbus A370, which does not exist, and his prediction that France will beat Brazil in the final of the football World Cup, which is impossible as they will meet in the quarter finals, if at all. “Cut off from the rest of the world in the Elysée palace, he has created a virtual world that he believes to be more real than reality,” mocked Libération’s editorial, in an irreverent tone rarely used when discussing the head of state, even by his fiercest critics. Le Figaro, the conservative broadsheet usually supportive of the government, drew an unflattering comparison between Mr Chirac and Zinédine Zidane, the ageing and much-criticised captain of France’s struggling football team. “His foot is no longer as sure, his glance no longer as quick: like Zinédine Zidane, Jacques Chirac has won every competition, but that was all long ago,” said Le Figaro’s editorial. “Like Zidane, as we all know, he will soon be forced to hang up his boots.” The regional press were equally damning. La République des Pyrénées said: “Jacques Chirac last night pushed the denial of reality to its limits.” Meanwhile, l’Est Républicain complained: “What is terrible about Jacques Chirac is that he listens to nothing, hears nothing, sees nothing.” Le Monde criticised “an exercise in self-satisfaction, which was, at the least, surreal”. The brickbats have built up after an annus horribilis for Mr Chirac. In May 2005, he lost a referendum on Europe’s constitutional treaty, forcing him to sack Jean-Pierre Raffarin and appoint Mr de Villepin. Soon afterwards, came the loss of the 2012 Olympic games to London, a spell in hospital after suffering a “vascular accident” in his eye, several weeks of urban riots across France, a humiliating u-turn on a youth labour law and the embarrassing Clearstream scandal. Mr Chirac on Monday attempted to leave the door open to him running for a third term in next year’s election. But analysts judged that the president had no choice but to maintain the possibility of running again, or he would have become even more of a lame duck leader. |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #1 Tres Opportun |
| Posted by: DanNY 2006-06-27 22:26 |