KEY POINTS:
PARIS - History is unlikely to be kind to Jacques Chirac.
A brief account of his career might read as follows. He spent 25 energetic and determined years plotting against enemies and knifing friends to reach the pinnacle of power. He spent the next 12 idle and muddled years as President of the Republic, achieving remarkably little.
However, for three things, at least, Chirac, 74, deserves to be remembered more positively.
His stand in 2003 against the American-British invasion of Iraq appears, with hindsight, to have been the height of wisdom. Chirac was accused at the time of being selfish, cowardly, even in hock to Saddam Hussein. The arguments that he made look prescient four years later.
It is foolish to think that American values can be imposed on the Middle East by force, Chirac argued. The world should be seen as "multi-polar", in other words, composed of different blocs of values and economic interests. In such a world, Europe should not be a branch of the American empire. To be reduced to such a role would not be in Europe's interests and not in America's interests.
Secondly, Chirac deserves credit for having resisted all forms of racism throughout his political career.
He will also be remembered as the first President to have had the courage to recognise - and apologise for - the role played by the apparatus of the French state in the persecution of Jews during World War II.
Thirdly, Chirac can reasonably claim to have saved the lives of 9000 of his fellow citizens. He was the first French leader to insist, in 2002, that the country's road traffic laws should be enforced properly by the police and gendarmerie. The effect on road safety in the past five years has been dramatic.
Those things apart, Chirac is likely to be remembered as one of the greatest, natural politicians of his age.
To spend a minute, even a few seconds, with him is to be brought inescapably under his spell.
This is an enormous political talent - a talent lacking in all the candidates to replace him - but one that Chirac had largely wasted.
- INDEPENDENT
