Jacques Chirac: The Failure of Social Gaullism, the Longest Cohabitation and the Spectre of the Far Right

In his chapter, Bernard Lachaise rigorously analyses the successive seven-year and five-year terms in office of the Neo-Gaullist veteran of French politics, Jacques Chirac. The chapter approaches the different phases of Chirac’s presidencies, from that in which the reformist politician put an end to fourteen years of Socialist dominance in the institutions of the French Republic (1995–1997), to the long period of wavering cohabitation with the Socialist Prime-Minister, Lionel Jospin (1997–2002), the stage of his re-election by default when he ran for President against the leader of the far-right (2002–2003) and that of his waning powers as the arbitrator of his succession (2004–2007). The author also studies the complex relations between the President, his majority or cohabitation governments, his more or less loyal and independent Prime Ministers and the increasingly dissenting parliamentary factions.