Paris
French President Jacques Chirac confirmed this week that he will not run for re-election next month. At the end of his second term, he said in an emotional farewell speech, “the moment will have come for me to serve you in a different fashion.” In his 12 years as president, Chirac’s high point with the French was his outspoken opposition to the Iraq war. The last few years, though, were marked by national embarrassments, including the high death toll among elderly people abandoned in the hot summer of 2003, and street riots among immigrant youth that set Paris ablaze in 2005. In one survey, just 2 percent of those polled said they wanted Chirac to run for a third term.
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