Jacques Chirac

Jacques Chirac (1932–2019) was a central figure in late 20th-century French politics and a defining voice of European Gaullism. He served as Prime Minister under President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (1974–1976) and again under President François Mitterrand (1986–1988) during the first cohabitation. He was Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995, a base from which he built a national political machine, and he founded the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) in 1976.

Elected President of the French Republic in 1995, Chirac defeated Socialist Lionel Jospin and was re-elected in 2002 against far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in a second round that mobilised a broad republican front. His twelve-year presidency reshaped France's posture on several fronts:

• Nuclear testing: He ordered a final series of nuclear tests at Mururoa and Fangataufa in 1995–1996, drawing international protest, before France signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996.
• Iraq War: In 2003, his government, led by Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq at the UN Security Council, with Villepin's 14 February 2003 speech becoming a landmark statement of French opposition.
• European integration: Chirac campaigned for the proposed European Constitutional Treaty, which French voters rejected in the May 2005 referendum.
• Historical memory: In a 1995 speech at the Vél' d'Hiv, he formally acknowledged the French state's responsibility for the deportation of Jews during the Vichy regime.

After leaving office in 2007, Chirac lost presidential immunity and was convicted in 2011 of misuse of public funds linked to fictitious jobs at the Paris city hall during his time as mayor, receiving a two-year suspended sentence. He died on 26 September 2019.