JOLLY DAYS

Jacques Chirac

An emblem of the negative aspects of the French character, preening and lecturing the US and the rest of the world while Brown Shirts wandered the streets of France, Chirac's departure will yield no tears.

Chirac's legacy:

One of consistent scorn for the Anglo-American world in general and the English language in particular, of suspicion of Central Europe and profound disinterest in the wave of democratic transformation that swept the world in the 1980s and 1990s, of preference for the Arab and African dictators who had been, and remained, clients of France. In his later years, Chirac constantly searched, in almost all international conflicts, for novel ways of opposing the United States. All along, he did his best to protect France from the rapidly changing global economy.