First leader to acknowledge France’s role in Holocaust
PARIS — Jacques Chirac, a two-term French president who was the first leader to acknowledge France’s role in the Holocaust and defiantly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, died Thursday at age 86.
His son-in-law Frederic Salat-Baroux told The Associated Press that Chirac died “peacefully, among his loved ones.” He did not give a cause of death.
His death was announced to lawmakers in France’s National Assembly, and members held a minute of silence. Mourners brought flowers and police set up barricades around his Paris residence, as French people, and politicians of all stripes, looked past Chirac’s flaws to share grief and fond memories of his 12-year presidency and decades in politics.
In a rare homage to Chirac, President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, planned a nationally televised speech Wednesday evening in his honor.
Chirac was long the standard-bearer of France’s conservative right, and mayor of Paris for nearly two decades. He was nicknamed “Le Bulldozer” early in his career for his determination and ambition. As president from 1995-2007 he was a consummate global diplomat but failed to reform the economy or defuse tensions between police and minority youths that exploded into riots across France in 2005.
Yet Chirac showed courage and statesmanship during his presidency.
In what may have been his finest hour, France’s last leader with memories of World War II crushed the myth of his nation’s innocence in the persecution of Jews and their deportation during the Holocaust when he acknowledged France’s part.
“Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state,” he said on July 16, 1995. “France, the land of the Enlightenment and human rights delivered those it protects to their executioners.”
With words less grand, the man who embraced European unity — once calling it an “art” — raged at the French ahead of their “no” vote in a 2005 referendum on the European constitution meant to fortify the EU. “If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, do it, but after, don’t complain,” he said. “It’s stupid, I’m telling you.” He was personally and politically humiliated by the defeat.
His popularity didn’t fully recover until after he left office in 2007, handing power to protege-turned-rival Nicolas Sarkozy, who praised his predecessor Thursday in a tweeted statement. Chirac, he said, “defended with panache the very particular place of France in the great international disorder” of the post-Cold War era.
Chirac was also remembered for another trait valued by the French: style.
Tall, dapper and charming, Chirac was a well-bred bon vivant who openly enjoyed the trappings of power: luxury trips abroad and life in a government-owned palace.
Yet he retained a common touch that worked wonders on the campaign trail, exuding warmth when kissing babies and enthusiasm when farmers — a key constituency — displayed their tractors. His preferences were for western movies and beer — and “tete de veau,” calf ’s head.
In recent years, Chirac was rarely seen in public. He was visibly weak and walked with a cane at a November 2014 award ceremony of his foundation, which supports peace projects.
Chirac is survived by his wife and younger daughter, Claude. His daughter, Laurence, died in 2016 after a long illness that Chirac once said was “the drama of my life.”