US embassy cable - 05PARIS521

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 000521 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE ALSO FOR EUR/WE, DRL/IL, AND INR/EUC 
DEPT OF LABOR FOR ILAB 
DEPT OF COMMERCE FOR ITA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/27/2010 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, ELAB, ECON, FR 
SUBJECT: PRESIDENT CHIRAC'S PROSPECTS FOR 2005 AND BEYOND 
-- KEEPING THE OPTIONS OPEN AND THE CHALLENGERS OFF BALANCE 
 
REF: 04 PARIS 8689 
 
Classified By: POLITICAL MINISTER COUNSELOR JOSIAH ROSENBLATT FOR REASO 
 
NS 1.4 (B) AND (D) 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
1.  (C) Although, President Chirac lost some ground with 
France's electorate on domestic policy issues during 2004, he 
more than made up for it -- finishing the year with a strong 
public image -- by his performance on foreign policy issues. 
His projection of himself as a proud President, standing up 
for France (particularly versus the U.S.), gives him a touch 
of the grandeur of the de Gaulle era that resonates with much 
of the French public.  If his overall popularity should hold 
steady, if he should win approval for the proposed EU 
Constitution in the upcoming referendum on it, and if the 
disarray and lack of stature among his likely challengers on 
the center-left persist, he will in all liklihood decide to 
run again in 2007.  To do so he will also have to hold off 
former Interior and Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who is 
directly challenging Chirac for leadership of the 
center-right.  The rivalry between Chirac and Sarkozy for 
control of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party will 
continue through 2005, which is shaping up as a fateful year 
for French politics.  END SUMMARY 
 
40 YEARS OF PUBLIC LIFE 
----------------------- 
2.  (SBU) Jacques Chirac won his first election in 1965 (as a 
member of the city council of the town of Sainte-Fereole in 
the Correze region of southern France).  He has not been out 
of politics, nor hardly out of office, since then.  Reporters 
who have covered him over the years, and claim to know his 
character and state of mind, agree that he is much more 
likely to be in denial about retirement than planning for it. 
 In this connection, media commentators also like to point to 
"the example" of Francois Mitterrand who was re-elected to a 
second term in 1988 at the age of 72 (Chirac's current age), 
and served as president until he was 79, when in May 1995 
Chirac succeeded him.  Recently asked what her husband would 
do when he retires from politics, Bernadette Chirac said, 
"Chirac in retirement?  I don't see it."  If elected 
president in 2007, Chirac would be 80 on leaving office in 
2012.  (French presidential terms were changed from seven 
years to five in 2000 during Chirac's "first" seven-year 
term.) 
 
NOT ACTING AS IF HIS LEGACY WERE BEHIND HIM 
------------------------------------------- 
3.  (C) President Chirac's gusto for his job remains evident, 
particularly in its constitutionally unchecked dimension as 
head of state with full control over France's foreign policy. 
 Chirac's performance defending his most recent (and rare) 
gamble with public opinion -- backing opening accession talks 
with Turkey though most Frenchmen and women are against 
Turkey's inclusion in the EU -- was energetic, lucid and 
forward-looking.  The public, at least according to polls, 
generally approved of his engagement on the issue and of his 
defense of the decision to support opening accession talks 
with Turkey, notwithstanding their persisting skepticism 
about the wisdom of having Turkey join the EU.  In all, just 
over the half way mark of what, until recently, was generally 
assumed would be his last term, France's president is clearly 
acting as if his legacy were still ahead of him.  Chirac is 
unlikely to withdraw voluntarily from politics unless 
circumstances and his political vulnerabilities dash all 
reasonable prospects for continuing. 
 
SARKOZY INTENT ON UNDERTAKING HIS OWN LEGACY 
-------------------------------------------- 
4.  (C) The deferential culture of the French political class 
makes Nicholas Sarkozy's open challenge to Chirac's 
leadership of the center-right remarkable.  Sarkozy, until 
recently Chirac's spotlight-grabbing Finance and Interior 
Minister, is now President of the Union for a Popular 
Movement (UMP) party, the party Chirac founded in 1995 to 
fuse the different strands of the center-right -- and support 
his successful bid for the presidency that year. (To Chirac's 
credit, he has all along excluded the far-right National 
Front from his center-right coalitions.)  To his great 
chagrin, Chirac had to accede to Sarkozy's election as head 
of the UMP.  Sarkozy decided to use his genuine popularity 
among party members to seize control of the party once Alain 
Juppe gave up the party presidency, in July 2004, a few 
months following his conviction on corruption charges 
(reftel).  For Sarkozy, the UMP is the platform from which to 
launch his bid for the French presidency in 2007.  Sarkozy's 
direct assault on Chirac's leadership of the center-right, 
not surprisingly, has exacerbated the long-standing rivalry 
between them. 
 
5.  (C) Sarkozy's youth, activism, and American-like 
enthusiasm for entrepreneurship resonate with those in France 
who advocate reforms to better adapt the economy and society 
to globalization -- the very areas of Chirac's poor showing 
as a domestic leader.  Sarkozy's nomination as the 
center-right's candidate in 2007 would be a bitter personal 
defeat for Chirac.  By keeping open the option that he might 
run again himself, Chirac keeps Sarkozy off balance, 
whipsawing Sarkozy between positioning himself against the 
Socialists and positioning himself against  Chirac. 
 
RIVALRY WILL PERSIST 
-------------------- 
6.  (C) The rivalry between Sarkozy and Chirac is a battle 
both to define what the center-right stands for and to become 
its standard bearer in 2007.  Chirac, particularly in recent 
years, has become more statist (including with regard to 
social policy), more "Gaullist" (particulary in regard to 
American leadership) and more "Republican" (in the sense of 
holding firm to the traditional French view that religion and 
other cultural allegiances have no place in the public 
sphere).  Sarkozy, on the other hand, is considered more 
market-oriented with regard to economic policy, an 
"Atlanticist" (both because of his predilection for the U.S. 
and his "American" style), and what the French call 
"communitarian" -- seen in Sarkozy's willingness to extend 
official recognition to ethnic and religious identities via 
affirmative action policies or state subsidized training of 
religious leaders. 
 
7.  (C) The intensity of the media coverage that followed 
Sarkozy's every move as Minister of the Interior and later as 
Minister of Economy during 2004 -- focussing in particular on 
those actions seen as signaling Sarkozy's defiance of the 
President -- will likely diminish in 2005.  However, the 
battle between "Chiracquiens" and "Sarkozists" over control 
of party funds and over the rules whereby the party will 
choose its candidate for 2007 will remain intense.  Sarkozy 
enjoys enthusiastic popularity among party rank-and-file, and 
so far, has kept the momentum of being the party's clear-cut 
leader for the future.  However, Chirac's power, as an 
incumbent president and founder of the party, in particular 
over the party's senior, elected office holders, should not 
be underestimated.  Sarkozy has advocated -- to the 
vociferous objection of supporters of President Chirac in the 
party -- that the party choose its nominee via a primary-like 
process in which party members vote. Current party rules are 
deliberately imprecise -- permitting the party leader's 
self-proclamation of his candidacy, as has been the practice 
on the right since the days of de Gaulle. 
 
FIVE MORE YEARS? 
--------------- 
8.  (C) Many media commentators insist that Chirac has made 
it amply clear that he wants five more years in the Elysee 
Palace.  For example, asked by a student at an event in 
November 2004, "When you leave the presidency, in 2007 or 
2012, what accomplishment will you be proudest of?" Chirac 
shot back, jokingly but tellingly, "Why 2012? Why not 2017?" 
In addition, many informed observers insist that the 
positions Chirac is taking on important issues, particularly 
in foreign affairs, are aimed at giving him that 
"personification of France" aura that has always played well 
to voters here.  Indeed, Chirac's relatively healthy level of 
popularity after 10 years as president is largely due to the 
"credit" he earned "standing up to the U.S." over Iraq.  For 
now, Sarkozy remains the obstacle that overshadows all others 
on Chirac's road to another term.  Projecting himself as the 
only political figure with the experience and stature to see 
to France's international role, including its role in the 
evolution of the EU, along with his familiarity to an 
electorate heavy with older voters, may be enough to put him 
over the top in a race against, for example, Socialist Party 
First Secretary Francois Hollande, who has never held a 
ministerial post. 
 
CONCLUSION 
---------- 
9. (C) The presidential elections of 2007 are still two and 
half years away.  Jacques Chirac will soon have been 
president for 10 years and shows no signs of wanting to stop. 
 In his New Year's address to the diplomatic corps, for 
example, Chirac was clearly focussed on the future -- he 
seemed a man energized for the campaign trail.  2005 will be 
a year of decision for Chirac himself, and for France on a 
number of key issues -- issues that have bedeviled Chirac 
(the pace and direction of domestic reform) and issues that 
have shown him at his best (the EU Constitution and support 
for Turkey's accession to the EU).  Chirac wants to keep the 
levers of power responsive to him.  Withdrawing as a 
potential candidate in 2007 would make Chirac a particularly 
lame, lame duck.  For all these reasons, Chirac will be 
careful, during coming months, to act like a candidate-to-be, 
hoping opportunism and circumstance will allow him to follow 
through sucessfully. 
Leach