" On 1 February 1996, Chirac announced that France had ended " once and for all " its nuclear testing, intending to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

He ran for President again in 2002, and was eliminated in the first round due to finishing behind both Chirac and the far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen, following which he immediately announced his retirement from politics.

He announced his retirement from politics, and the PS called on its supporters to vote for Chirac in order to defeat the far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, who had surprisingly advanced to the run-off.

A cancellation of one-third of the debts owed to France by the poorest countries was announced, while technical and liberalising adjustments were also made to several controversial bills passed by the previous Chirac Government, amongst the notable being changes to measures which made it easier for landlords to impose higher market rents, for the police to expel summarily ( without court order ) illegal aliens picked up on suspicion, and making it easier for firms to dismiss their workers.

In November 1995, his Prime Minister Alain Juppé, " the best among us " according to Chirac, announced a plan of Welfare-State reforms which sparked wide social conflict.

Chrétien had initially dismissed Chirac as a “ right-wing Gaullist ” and had been publicly furious when Chirac announced on Larry King Live that France would be one of the first countries to recognize an independent Quebec.

In January 1988, when he announced his candidacy, Chirac was credited with 19. 5 % in the first round by SOFRES polls institute, against 23 % for Barre.

Chirac was elected on a platform of tax cuts and job programs, but his policies did little to ease the labor strikes during his first months in office.

Nevertheless, Chirac did not even have to campaign in the second round, as widespread anti-Le Pen protests from the media and public opinion culminated on May Day, with an estimated 1. 5 million demonstrators across France.

But he did surprisingly well, leading the first round and losing only very narrowly to Jacques Chirac in the final runnoff election.

As a result, Jospin narrowly polled in third place, behind Chirac and the Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, and thus did not go through to the runoff second round of voting.

Jacques Chirac ( who said, upon hearing of Senghor's death: " Poetry has lost one of its masters, Senegal a statesman, Africa a visionary and France a friend ") and Lionel Jospin, respectively president of the French Republic and the prime minister, did not attend.

Eliminated in the first round, Chirac refused to give an endorsement for the second round, though he did say privately that he would vote for Giscard d ' Estaing.

For example, in the Alpes-Maritimes, Sarkozy performed 21. 6 % better than Chirac did in 2002 while Le Pen lost 12. 6 % in five years.

While former President Jacques Chirac, the right's strongman in normally left-wing Corrèze had always done very well in Corrèze and the surrounding departments, Sarkozy did very poorly and actually lost the department in the 2007 runoff.

French President Jacques Chirac had granted him presidential amnesty, a fact the Commissioner did not disclose during his hearing to the Parliament.

The three major political forces in France ( UMP, PS and UDF ) supported the proposed Constitution, as did President Chirac.

On 30 October 2009, a judge ordered Chirac to stand trial on embezzlement charges, dating back to his time as mayor of Paris.

Reacting to criticism, Chirac said, " You only have to look back at 1935 ... There were people then who were against France arming itself, and look what happened.

He has since lost his soft spot for Laguiller after she refused to back Jacques Chirac against Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 presidential election and has stated that he won't sing this song again.

President François Mitterrand, a Socialist, for example, was forced to cohabit with the neo-Gaullist ( right wing ) Jacques Chirac, who became his prime minister from 1986 to 1988.

When Giscard became president, he nominated Chirac as prime minister on 27 May 1974, in order to reconcile the " Giscardian " and " non-Giscardian " factions of the parliamentary majority.

As prime minister, Chirac quickly set about persuading the Gaullists that, despite the social reforms proposed by President Giscard, the basic tenets of Gaullism, such as national and European independence, would be retained.

When the RPR / UDF right-wing coalition won a slight majority in the National Assembly in the 1986 election, Mitterrand ( PS ) appointed Chirac prime minister ( though many in Mitterrand's inner circle lobbied him to choose Jacques Chaban-Delmas instead ).

On the domestic front, neo-liberal economic austerity measures introduced by Chirac and his conservative prime minister Alain Juppé, including budgetary cutbacks, proved highly unpopular.

The Socialist Party ( PS ), joined by other parties on the left, soundly defeated Chirac's conservative allies, forcing Chirac into a new period of cohabitation with Jospin as prime minister ( 1997 – 2002 ), which lasted five years.

It had been expected that he would face incumbent prime minister Lionel Jospin ( PS ) in the second round of elections ; instead, Chirac faced controversial far right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen of National Front ( FN ) who came in 200, 000 votes ahead of Jospin.

Chirac appoints Jean-Pierre Raffarin as his prime minister, replacing Lionel Jospin.

President Chirac named Jospin prime minister on June 2, and Jospin went on to form a Plural Left government composed primarily of Socialist ministers, along with some ministers from allied parties of the left, such as the Communist Party and the Greens.

A rivalry appeared with his prime minister Jacques Chirac, who resigned in 1976.

In the recent bicentennial, however, controversy erupted when neither French president Jacques Chirac nor prime minister Dominique de Villepin attended any functions commemorating the battle.

On 30 March 2004 Jean-Pierre Raffarin tendered the resignation of his government to president Jacques Chirac, who immediately re-appointed him prime minister, with the delegation to form a new government.

For example, right after the legislative election of 1986, President François Mitterrand appointed Jacques Chirac as prime minister, Chirac was a member of the RPR and a political opponent of Mitterrand's, and despite the fact the Mitterrand's own Socialist Party was still the largest party in the Assembly, the RPR had an ally in the UDF, which gave them a majority.

PS leader Lionel Jospin lost his bid to succeed Mitterrand as president in the 1995 presidential election against Rally for the Republic leader Jacques Chirac, but became prime minister in a cohabitation government after the 1997 parliamentary elections, a position Jospin held until 2002, when he was again defeated in the presidential election.

Under Lionel Jospin ( the socialist who was prime minister under president Jacques Chirac from 1997 to 2002 ), the PCF again held ministerial offices from 1997 to 2002 ( Jean-Claude Gayssot as Minister of Transportation, etc .).

Paris has long trained the French and international political and economic elite: specifically the three immediate past French presidents ( Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Chirac and François Mitterrand ), thirteen past or present French prime ministers, twelve past or present foreign heads of state or government, and a former United Nations Secretary-General.

Chirac refused to re-cohabitate with Mitterrand, and Edouard Balladur became prime minister.

Years later, when Paul Martin became prime minister and dismissed Pelletier ( see below ), Chirac criticized Martin for his treatment of Pelletier.

Thus, the draft laws presented by François Mitterrand's government in the early 1980s, concerning restrictions on the funding of private ( and in majority Catholic ) schools, were countered by right-wing demonstrations headed by the then mayor of Paris, the Gaullist Jacques Chirac, who was to be his prime minister in 1986 and would succeed him in 1995 as president.

She was in the same class as her former partner of 30 years, François Hollande ( whom she met at a party ), as well as Dominique de Villepin ( prime minister under Jacques Chirac ).

Instead of informing the president's staff with reports directly concerning Chirac, Cousseran informed only Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin just as he was making it clear that he would run against Chirac in the 2002 presidential election.