Word: chirac
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin got a big boost in his run for the French presidency after winning 23.3% of the first-round balloting against Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac's 20.8%. Still, Chirac is favored to win Sunday's runoff and succeed two-term President Francois Mitterrand...
Just 24 hours after French officials ordered five alleged American spies to leave the country, the affair has become mired in France's own presidential politics. Today, Foreign Minister Alain Juppe -- a supporter of conservative candidate Jacques Chirac -- said he was "scandalized" by the leak and ordered an investigation. Interior Ministry officials, who reportedly gave the story to the Paris daily Le Monde and ordered the Americans to leave, are catching flak. They support Premier Edouard Balladur, whose presidential campaign was already tangled in a wiretapping scandal. "It's a campaign maneuver," said Philippe Vasseur, a Chirac backer. "They were...
Serene? Not if Jacques Chirac can help it. The Paris mayor and former Prime Minister is seething over what he calls Balladur's ``betrayal.'' Two years ago, with the conservatives poised to win a majority in legislative elections, Chirac and Balladur cut a deal: Chirac, then leader of the Gaullist Rally for the Republic (R.P.R.) party, would put Balladur into the Prime Minister's job; Balladur, in turn, would defer to Chirac as the Gaullists' ``natural'' candidate in the 1995 presidential election...
Trouble is that Balladur, quite unexpectedly, became the darling of the opinion polls and the front runner for the presidency. One by one, conservative leaders, including 25 of 29 current Cabinet members, deserted Chirac for Balladur. The defections need not be fatal for Chirac: he still claims the support of 240 of the R.P.R.'s 350 Senators and Deputies and appears to have the majority of the Gaullist rank and file on his side. But with Balladur enjoying far broader support from the center, the Prime Minister's 2-to-1 lead in the polls is formidable...
That could leave Balladur and Chirac facing each other in the May 7 runoff. Chirac's hopes would then depend on winning substantial support among traditionally leftist voters. He is already wooing them with a social program that includes emergency job programs for the long-term unemployed and on-the-job training for young people. But credibility is a problem. Chirac has changed his views so often--he went from state dirigisme in the '70s to Reagan-style free-marketry in the '80s--that many people are skeptical...