Jacques Chirac

World War II was the most awful experience of humanity in this century. Nostalgia for it lingers, the lessons forgotten.Cheer up. Jacques Chirac got elected.

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, FRANCE -- Under an overcast sky not unlike the morning 63 years ago that Allied forces stormed the Norman beaches below, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates pointed yesterday to their sacrifice to argue that the United States and France have long worked together to defeat tyranny and now must do so again. Speaking at the U.S. memorial on the northwest French coast overlooking the graves of 9,387 Americans killed in the Battle of Normandy, Gates marked the anniversary of D-Day by recalling the shared history of France and the United States during World War II and the Cold War. Despite occasional discord, he said, Washington and Paris "remained unified in purpose" against Nazi Germany and later Soviet communism.

What difference does it make who is president of France? Jacques Chirac has come up with an answer for skeptical Americans. He is a Gaullist. He means to have impact. In global terms, France is back; in domestic terms, the president is back.No more the fading pomposity of the 14-year Socialist president, Francois Mitterrand, for whom grandeur was architectural and who was forced to "cohabit" with a conservative cabinet. Since inauguration on May 17, Jacques Chirac has been in charge. Prime Minister Alain Juppe serves at his pleasure.

PARIS -- After more than four decades as a politician and a dozen years as president, Jacques Chirac announced his retirement from politics yesterday, but he did not endorse Nicolas Sarkozy, the presidential candidate and leader of his own party. In a brief and deeply personal address to the nation carried on television and radio, Chirac said he would not seek a third term in next month's election. "At the end of the mandate you have conferred on me, the moment will have come for me to serve you in another way," Chirac said.

French Socialist Lionel Jospin delightfully humiliated the pollsters with his first-place 23.3 percent in the first round of his nation's presidential election. The left lives. But Mayor Jacques Chirac of Paris, former prime minister, is the front-runner in the run-off between the top two on May 7. He starts with the base of his own 20.8 percent plus the third-place 18.6 percent (total, 39.4 percent) of his fellow Gaullist, Edouard Balladur.The French are bemused by the phenomenon they call "the excluded" -- the destitute, North African immigrants and 12.3 percent unemployed left out of French prosperity -- a concept pretty close to "the marginalized" of Mexico or "underclass" of the United States.

PARIS -- After more than four decades as a politician and a dozen years as president, Jacques Chirac announced his retirement from politics yesterday, but he did not endorse Nicolas Sarkozy, the presidential candidate and leader of his own party. In a brief and deeply personal address to the nation carried on television and radio, Chirac said he would not seek a third term in next month's election. "At the end of the mandate you have conferred on me, the moment will have come for me to serve you in another way," Chirac said.

PARIS -- French President Jacques Chirac's decision to break ranks with his allies by inviting Iraq's foreign minister to Paris this week is the latest sign that he is deliberately modeling himself on another troublesome Frenchman, Charles de Gaulle.The last time Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, was seen in these parts was when he and then-Secretary of State James A. Baker engaged in a dialogue of the deaf in Geneva on the eve of the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991.Since then, Mr. Aziz and his master have been shunned by virtually the whole world.

PARIS - Governments come and governments go, and yesterday the French government went and came back again. Two days after his Conservative Party was soundly defeated by the leftist opposition in regional elections, President Jacques Chirac accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and fired his government. Then he turned around and asked Raffarin to stay on and form a new administration. The news came with no explanation in a two-sentence statement from the Elysee Palace: "Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin handed the government's resignation to the president of the republic, who accepted it. He named Jean-Pierre Raffarin prime minister and ordered him to form a new government."

The comic opera handling of a serious espionage dispute between France and the United States afforded rare public insight into the post-Cold War use of clandestine dirty tricks in industrial rivalry between countries that politically are friends and that otherwise cooperate.The CIA would appear to have been caught trying to recruit agents within the French government for the purpose of combating French spying on American industrial firms. French agents have sought U.S. firms' production secrets or trade strategies, particularly in rivalry between French and U.S. defense firms for weapons sales abroad.

COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, FRANCE -- Under an overcast sky not unlike the morning 63 years ago that Allied forces stormed the Norman beaches below, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates pointed yesterday to their sacrifice to argue that the United States and France have long worked together to defeat tyranny and now must do so again. Speaking at the U.S. memorial on the northwest French coast overlooking the graves of 9,387 Americans killed in the Battle of Normandy, Gates marked the anniversary of D-Day by recalling the shared history of France and the United States during World War II and the Cold War. Despite occasional discord, he said, Washington and Paris "remained unified in purpose" against Nazi Germany and later Soviet communism.

PARIS - Governments come and governments go, and yesterday the French government went and came back again. Two days after his Conservative Party was soundly defeated by the leftist opposition in regional elections, President Jacques Chirac accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and fired his government. Then he turned around and asked Raffarin to stay on and form a new administration. The news came with no explanation in a two-sentence statement from the Elysee Palace: "Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin handed the government's resignation to the president of the republic, who accepted it. He named Jean-Pierre Raffarin prime minister and ordered him to form a new government."

It's so much fun to hate the French. Their fries, their toast, which they don't call French, by the way. Their food, their wine, their culture, their history, their perfume, their beautiful women, their chic, their literature, their art, their museums and cathedrals. Paris. Ugh. It's almost April. Don't you just hate the place? And their politicians. Quel swine! Jacques Chirac? Dead meat, Mack. He won't do war against Eye-Rack. The French must be punished. Americans are dumping their french fries and toast - well, not really; just renaming them.

WASHINGTON - An increasingly isolated President Bush furiously lobbied wary world leaders from his desk in the Oval Office yesterday, employing his brand of personal diplomacy to persuade them to back his tough line against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. During a third consecutive day devoted almost exclusively to Iraq, Bush conferred by phone with leaders from Russia, Britain, Pakistan, Spain, Lithuania, the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates, a lobbying blur reminiscent of a president trying to ram a pet bill through Congress.

Television broadcast the collapse of the World Trade Center live, and endlessly replayed the footage. Untold millions of printed words have been devoted to describing the events of Sept. 11. And yet the most eloquent record of the tragedy can be found in still photography. One can sit and study photographic images from the attacks for hours, amazed even now that what was captured so vividly on film could have occurred just that way. Many observers noted that watching the live TV coverage of the second plane hitting the South Tower felt like watching a Hollywood movie -- we're all accustomed, as viewers of moving images, to seeing the unbelievable made to appear real, but still photos retain a documentary authority, a purity that makes them even more powerful.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Jacques Chirac should easily defeat extreme rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen in today's presidential elections in France. But neither Mr. Le Pen nor the public mood of insecurity that helped propel him into the second round is likely to soon fade. Moreover, his success could embolden nationalistic and xenophobic parties elsewhere in Europe. The outcome of today's election is not in doubt. Eager to restore the nation's dignity, voters on the left as well as the center will heed the admonition of political leaders to reject the extreme right.

PARIS - Vastly experienced as a mayor, prime minister and now president, Jacques Chirac is beginning to look like one of Europe's great political survivors, even as he becomes ensnarled in allegations of corruption. The allegations of wrongdoing linked to his tenure as mayor of Paris, from 1977 to 1995, have left the French public largely unconcerned. The press rarely manages to fluster him. And judicial investigators don't have the authority to question him. He remains favored to win next year's presidential elections, even though he hasn't declared his candidacy for a second term.

It's so much fun to hate the French. Their fries, their toast, which they don't call French, by the way. Their food, their wine, their culture, their history, their perfume, their beautiful women, their chic, their literature, their art, their museums and cathedrals. Paris. Ugh. It's almost April. Don't you just hate the place? And their politicians. Quel swine! Jacques Chirac? Dead meat, Mack. He won't do war against Eye-Rack. The French must be punished. Americans are dumping their french fries and toast - well, not really; just renaming them.

PARIS -- In France's first presidential election since the end of the Cold War, voters are to decide today which two of the nine candidates seeking to succeed President Francois Mitterrand will make it to the decisive runoff vote May 7.Barring a major upset, the main question is who will come in second behind the front-runner, the conservative mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac.Two public opinion surveys taken before the end of campaigning on Friday indicated that Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, Mr. Chirac's fellow conservative and former friend, and Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate, were both trailing Mr. Chirac by four percentage points, each with about 20 percent.

He is probably the world's best-known wine critic. Over the past 21 years, he has written 10 international best-sellers on wines, published more than 120 issues of his authoritative Wine Advocate newsletter and delivered his opinion on nearly a quarter of a million wines.But Robert M. Parker Jr. is not even remotely ready to shelve his tasting glass anytime soon."If I continue to do my job well," he says, "people become more confident, they learn more about wine, they learn that there is an extraordinary diversity of wines out there."

PARIS -- French President Jacques Chirac's decision to break ranks with his allies by inviting Iraq's foreign minister to Paris this week is the latest sign that he is deliberately modeling himself on another troublesome Frenchman, Charles de Gaulle.The last time Tariq Aziz, Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, was seen in these parts was when he and then-Secretary of State James A. Baker engaged in a dialogue of the deaf in Geneva on the eve of the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1991.Since then, Mr. Aziz and his master have been shunned by virtually the whole world.