Tribute
Paris, Sept. 26, 2019 (dpa/NAN) Political leaders in France and abroad on Thursday paid tribute to the country’s former president, Jacques Chirac, after his death at the age of 86.
The National Assembly and Senate in Paris interrupted their debates to stand in silence in memory of the conservative statesman who led France from 1995 to 2007.
Chirac, who was admired by many abroad for his staunch opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, “is now part of France’s history,’’ National Assembly President, Richard Ferrand, said.
Former Socialist President, Francois Hollande, said his predecessor was a fighter, a humanist, a man of culture and a European.
“For 12 years, he presided over France with the intention of making it respected throughout the world,’’ Hollande wrote in a statement.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Chirac had been a “stellar partner and friend’’ to Germany.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a letter to Chirac’s widow Bernadette, paid tribute to his “great personal contribution’’ to a friendship between the two countries.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, said Chirac had been “truly a pioneer’’ in putting climate change on the international agenda.
In Paris, dozens of well-wishers and onlookers gathered behind police barriers near the Chiracs’ Left Bank apartment building, a stone’s throw from the Senate.
Bearing flowers, Hoang Thi Thin said she wanted to offer “a sign of gratitude” to Chirac, who as mayor of Paris in 1979 had supported Vietnamese “boat people” refugees including herself.
“He was an exceptional politician in his human warmth,’’ Hoang said.
In addition to Chirac’s assertive foreign policy, many recalled his historic acknowledgement of the French state’s role in the wartime round-up and deportation of Jewish people to Nazi death camps.
France’s Chief Rabbi, Haim Korsia, said he had shown “incredible courage”.
“The former president was one of the last giants of French political life,’’ the conservative president of the Upper France region, Xavier Bertrand, who served under him as a minister, said.
The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, ordered flags on the city’s building lowered to half-mast in memory of Chirac, who served as mayor for 18 years.
The Eiffel Tower was due to go dark at 9.00 p.m. (1900 GMT) in his honour.
Chirac also knew many political setbacks, including the 2005 rejection by French voters of a proposed constitution for the European Union.
Later the same year, he suffered a minor stroke and, in the closing months of the year, the country saw severe rioting by frustrated youths from minority backgrounds.
In 2011, already in poor health, he received a two-year suspended sentence over allegations that, as mayor of Paris in the 1990s, he put party members on the city payroll without them actually working.
But those failings were put aside on Thursday as even the far right and hard left joined in tributes to the former president.
“He loved France more than others after him,’’ radical left-wing leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, tweeted.
“And for that, we are grateful to him.’’
“Even though he was a political adversary of the National Front for decades, we will remember his refusal to take part in the second Iraq war in 2003, which was one of the last acts of sovereignty by a French head of state,’’ far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, said.
Chirac, who suffered from severe memory problems, had disappeared from public life in recent years.
His wife, Bernadette, who survives him, has also faded from public view. (dpa/NAN)
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Edited by Abdulfatah Babatunde