Investor's Business DailyLeadership: His popularity plummeting, Jacques Chirac announced on Sunday that he'll step down as France's president. Some say his legacy will be 'mixed,' but not us. No, it was pretty much rotten all the way through.
As his time in office winds down, get ready for some melancholy retrospectives about what Chirac 'meant.' But remember: Despite his claims to the contrary, the man was no friend of the U.S. and at times acted with open contempt toward our values and global responsibilities.
Nor will he be missed in France. The 74-year-old Gaullist has been in public life for more than 40 years, the last 12 as president — a period during which France waned in influence and clout.
A big reason has been an economy that, when measured in output per person, lagged not only the U.S., but also the European Union 15 and the much broader 26-nation OECD. Worse, unemployment has remained shockingly high, with 8.4% of all French having no work — vs. 7.4% for all of Europe and 4.5% in the U.S.
French companies simply don't hire if they can avoid it. They face too many rules, too many trade barriers that make crucial imports costly and, worst of all, a crippling 35-hour workweek that Chirac accepted from his governing partners, the Socialists.
Last year, Chirac had a chance to lift the cloud over France's stagnant economy by making some minor changes to the country's labor laws. But when thousands of protesters took to the streets, he backed down, favoring his future over his nation's.
Chirac has also failed in managing France's relationship with the world — especially the U.S. During his term, France acquired a reputation for being an unsteady and unreliable partner. Indeed, at times France has behaved more like an enemy than a friend.
Before the first Gulf War, France — at Chirac's urging — helped to arm Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and even began building its nuclear program. Chirac knew full well that Saddam's ultimate goal was anything but peaceful. But there was money to be made.
In the run-up to the second Iraq War, France worked behind the scenes to thwart the U.S. move to depose Saddam. At the time, France made it seem like principled opposition. Turns out that France was among those nations that cheated on the U.N.'s oil-for-food program with Iraq. French politicians and companies pocketed billions of dollars in cash from Saddam — while Iraqi children suffered from malnutrition and poor health care.
Starting in 2003, Chirac disastrously pushed to weaken the U.S., part of his bid to counter our post-Cold War global dominance. His idea was to create a giant EU superstate to directly compete. But when he called a referendum on the idea of a sweeping EU constitution in 2005, it went down to resounding defeat. His fate was sealed.
When radicalized Muslim 'youths' took to the streets to riot two years ago, burning thousands of cars, Chirac had basically no response — leaving his rivals, like Nicolas Sarkozy and even the Socialist Segolene Royal, to talk tough. They did, and the public liked it.
By last year, Chirac's stock had fallen so far that his big plan to 'restore' Gallic pride was — no joke — to create a government-funded alternative to Google. Ah, the glory of France.
We'll leave it to historians to put Chirac's incompetence and dishonesty into deeper perspective. Let's leave it at this: Chirac has been a disaster for his country and for Europe, and left France's ties with the U.S. in tatters. Quite a legacy.