Name	Isabel Paterson
Birth date	January 22, 1886
Birth place	Manitoulin Island, Ontario
Death date	January 10, 1961
Death place	Montclair, New Jersey
Occupation	Novelist, journalist, philosopher, literary critic
Nationality	Canadian-American
Period	20th century
Subject	journalism, philosophy, literary criticism
Influences	Lord Acton, Ayn Rand, Garet Garrett
Influenced	Rose Wilder Lane, Ayn Rand
website	}}

Isabel Paterson (January 22, 1886, – January 10, 1961) was a Canadian-American journalist, novelist, political philosopher, and a leading literary critic of her day. Along with Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand, who both acknowledged an intellectual debt to Paterson, she is one of the three founding mothers of American libertarianism. Paterson's best-known work, her 1943 book ''The God of the Machine'', a treatise on political philosophy, economics, and history, reached conclusions and espoused beliefs that many libertarians credit as a foundation of their philosophy. Her biographer Stephen D. Cox (2004) believes Paterson is the "earliest progenitor of libertarianism as we know it today." Ayn Rand wrote in a letter in the 1940s that ''The God of the Machine'' "does for capitalism what ''Das Kapital'' does for the Reds and what the ''Bible'' did for Christianity."

Life

Born Isabel Mary Bowler in rural Manitoulin Island, Ontario, she moved with her family to the west when she was very young. She grew up on a cattle ranch in Alberta. Paterson's family was quite poor and she had eight siblings. A voracious reader who was largely self-educated, she had brief and informal public schooling during these years: about three years in a country school, from the ages of 11 to 14. In her late teen years, Bowler left the ranch for the city of Calgary, where she took a clerical job with the Canadian Pacific Railway. As a teenager, she worked as a waitress, stenographer, and bookkeeper, working at one point as an assistant to future Canadian Prime Minister R. B. Bennett.

This hardscrabble youth probably led Paterson to attach great importance to productive "self-starters". Although she was articulate, well-read, and erudite, Paterson had extremely limited formal education, an experience she shared with Rose Wilder Lane, who was also Paterson's friend and correspondent for many years.

In 1910, at the age of 24, Bowler entered into a short-lived marriage with Canadian Kenneth B. Paterson. The marriage was not happy, and they parted in 1918. It was during these years, in a foray south of the border, that Paterson landed a job with a newspaper, the ''Inland Herald'' in Spokane, Washington. Initially she worked in the business department of the paper, but later transferred to the editorial department. There her journalistic career began. Her next position was with a newspaper in Vancouver, British Columbia, where for two years she wrote drama reviews.

Writer and critic

In 1914, Paterson started submitting her first two novels, ''The Magpie's Nest'' and ''The Shadow Riders,'' to publishers, without much success. It was not until 1916 that her second novel ''The Shadow Riders'' was accepted and published by John Lane Company, which also published ''The Magpie's Nest'' the following year in 1917.

After World War I, she moved to New York City, where she worked for the sculptor Gutzon Borglum. He was creating statues for the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and would later carve the memorial at Mount Rushmore. Paterson also wrote for the ''World'' and the ''American'' in New York.

In 1921, Paterson became an assistant to Burton Rascoe, the new literary editor of the ''New York Tribune'', later the ''New York Herald Tribune''. For 25 years, from 1924 to 1949, she wrote a column (signed "I.M.P.") for the ''Herald Tribune's'' "Books" section. Paterson became one of the most influential literary critics of her time. She covered a time of great expansion in the United States literary world, with new work by the rising generation of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and many others, African Americans of the Harlem Renaissance, as well as the first American generation of the great waves of European immigrants. Her friends during this period included the famous humorist Will Cuppy. In 1928 she became an American citizen, at the age of 42.

She was notorious for demonstrating her sharp wit and goring of sacred cows in her column, where she also first articulated many of the political ideas that reached their final form in ''The God of the Machine''. Her thinking, especially on free trade, was also foreshadowed in her historical novels of the 1920s and 1930s. Paterson opposed most of the economic program known as the New Deal, which American president Franklin D. Roosevelt put into effect during the Great Depression. She advocated less government involvement in both social and fiscal issues.

Paterson and Ayn Rand

By the late 1930s, Paterson led a group of younger writers, many of them other ''Herald Tribune'' employees, who shared her views. One was future ''Time'' magazine correspondent and editor Sam Welles.

Another was the young Ayn Rand. From their many discussions, Paterson is credited with adding to Rand's knowledge of American history and government, and Rand with contributing ideas to ''The God of the Machine''. Paterson believed Rand's ethics to be a unique contribution, writing to Rand in the 1940s, "You still don't seem to know yourself that your idea is ''new''. It is not Nietzsche or Max Stirner... Their supposed Ego was composed of whirling words–your concept of the Ego is an entity, a person, a living creature functioning in concrete reality."

Paterson and Rand promoted each other's books and conducted an extensive correspondence over the years, in which they often touched on religion and philosophy. An atheist, Rand was critical of the deist Paterson's attempts to link capitalism with religion. Rand believed the two to be incompatible, and the two argued at length. Their correspondence ended after they quarreled in 1948. During a visit to Rand at her home in California, Paterson's remarks about writer Morrie Ryskind and abrasive behavior toward businessman William C. Mullendore, other guests of Rand, resulted in Rand's disillusionment with "Pat."

Similarly, Paterson had broken with another friend and political ally, Rose Wilder Lane, in 1946.

As a sign of the political tenor of the times, ''The God of the Machine'' was published in the same year as Rand's novel ''The Fountainhead'' and Rose Wilder Lane's ''The Discovery of Freedom''. Writer Albert Jay Nock wrote that Lane's and Paterson's nonfiction books were "the only intelligible books on the philosophy of individualism that have been written in America this century." The two women had "shown the male world of this period how to think fundamentally... They don't fumble and fiddle around--every shot goes straight to the centre." Journalist John Chamberlain credits Paterson, Lane and Rand with his final "conversion" from socialism to what he called "an older American philosophy" of libertarian and conservative ideas.

Later years

Paterson further influenced the post-WWII rise of lettered American conservatism through her correspondence with the young Russell Kirk in the 1940s, and with the young William F. Buckley in the 1950s. Buckley and Kirk went on to found the ''National Review,'' to which Paterson contributed for a brief time. However, she sometimes sharply differed from Buckley, for example by disagreeing with the magazine's review of Rand's novel, ''Atlas Shrugged''.

In her retirement, Paterson declined to enroll in Social Security.

Paterson is interred in the Welles family plot ]Saint Mary's Episcopal Churchyard in Burlington, New Jersey.

Quotation

"Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends... when millions are slaughtered, when torture is practiced, starvation enforced, oppression made a policy, as at present over a large part of the world, and as it has often been in the past, it must be at the behest of very many good people, and even by their direct action, for what they consider a worthy object." (''The God of the Machine'')

Bibliography

1916. ''The Shadow Riders'' (online e-book).

1917. ''The Magpie's Nest'' (online e-book).

1924. ''The Singing Season''

1926. ''The Fourth Queen''

1930. ''The Road of the Gods''

1933. ''Never Ask the End'' (online e-book).

1934. ''The Golden Vanity''

1940. ''If It Prove Fair Weather''

1943. ''The God of the Machine'' (online e-book).

Unpublished. ''Joyous Gard'' (Completed 1958.)

Biography:

Cox, Stephen, 2004. ''The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America''. Transaction Publishers.

Beito, David T. and Beito, Linda Royster, "Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Zora Neale Hurston on War, Race, the State, and Liberty", ''Independent Review'' 12 (Spring 2008).

References

External links

Cato Institute: Isabel Paterson 1886-1961. The source for most of this entry.

Cato Institute: The God of the Machine.

Doherty, Brian, Review of Cox (2004), ''Reason'', February 2005.

NeglectedBooks.com: Review and Excerpt from ''The Golden Vanity''

NeglectedBooks.com: Review of ''If It Prove Fair Weather''

NeglectedBooks.com: Review and Excerpt from ''Never Ask the End''

NeglectedBooks.com: Review of ''The Shadow Riders''

RationalReview.com: Essay-Review on Cox by Jeff Riggenbach

Category:1886 births Category:1961 deaths Category:American libertarians Category:American literary critics Category:New York Herald Tribune people Category:American political philosophers Category:American political writers Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States Category:Canadian libertarians Category:Christian libertarians Category:Libertarian theorists Category:Writers from Michigan Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Manitoulin District Category:Old Right (United States)

de:Isabel Paterson fr:Isabel Paterson it:Isabel Paterson zh:伊莎贝尔·帕特森

Jeff Riggenbach (born January 12, 1947) is an American libertarian journalist, author, editor, broadcaster, and educator.

Riggenbach's first book, ''In Praise of Decadence'' (1998), argued that the baby boomers turned out to be far more libertarian in their personal philosophy than had been expected.

His second book, ''Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism'' (2009), argued that political events and trends in late 20th Century America had led to a rebirth of popular interest in revisionist accounts of American history. In this study of American revisionists, Riggenbach identifies three distinct phases within American revisionism.

Works

''Berkeley's Radical Slumlords'', Photocopied article taken from ''Reason'', (Oct. 1986): 22–29.(1986)

''In Praise of Decadence'' (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998), ISBN 1573922463

''Why American History Is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism'' (Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009)

See also

Antiwar.com

LewRockwell.com

Ludwig von Mises Institute

Reason (magazine)

Historical revisionism

References

External links

Preface to ''Why American History Is Not What They Say''

Review/Essay on Ayn Rand's posthumous Art of Nonfiction, 2001.

Meeting Murray Rothbard On the Road to Libertarianism, 2003.

Obituary Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947–2004), 2004.

Obituary Joan Kennedy Taylor, 1926–2005, 2005.

The Libertarian Tradition Archive at Mises.org

Review/Essay on Stephen Cox's biography of Isabel Paterson, 2005.

Review/Essay on three new books on Voltairine de Cleyre, 2006.

Review/Essay on Barry Eisler's John Rain thrillers, 2006.

Review/Essay on Brian Doherty's Radicals for Capitalism, 2007.

Category:American libertarians Category:American political writers Category:1947 births Category:Living people

zh:杰夫·里根巴赫

Name	Carol Browner
Alt	A pale-skinned woman in her fifties with straight, light brown hair parted near the middle and falling to above the shoulders, wearing a light beige suit jacket, listening with a serious expression to an unseen question as she stands behind a brown podium with a blue and white sign saying "Office of the President Elect" and two black microphones, against a blue drapes background.
Office	Director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	Heather Zichal
Term start	January 22, 2009
Term end	March 2011
Predecessor	Position established
Successor	Position abolished
Office2	8th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
President2	Bill Clinton
Term start2	January 23, 1993
Term end2	January 20, 2001
Predecessor2	William Reilly
Successor2	Christine Todd Whitman
Birth date	December 16, 1955
Birth place	Miami, Florida, United States
Party	Democratic Party
Spouse	Michael Podhorzer (Divorced)Thomas Downey (2007–present)
Alma mater	University of FloridaUniversity of Florida College of Law
Profession	Lawyer }}

Carol Martha Browner (born December 16, 1955) is an American lawyer, environmentalist, and businesswoman, who served as director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011. Browner previously served as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001.

Browner grew up in Florida and graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Florida College of Law. After working for the Florida House of Representatives, she was employed by Citizen Action in Washington, D.C. She became a legislative assistant for Senators Lawton Chiles and Al Gore. Browner then headed the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation from 1991 to 1993, where she turned it into one of the most active departments in the state government.

She was the longest-serving administrator in the history of the EPA, staying through both terms of the Clinton presidency. During her tenure, she reorganized the agency's enforcement structure and oversaw two new programs designed to create flexible partnerships with industry as an alternative to traditional regulation. She started a successful program to deal with contaminated lands in urban areas. She took the lead within the administration in defending existing environmental laws and budgets, and was the driving force behind a stringent tightening of air quality standards that led to a prolonged political and legal battle.

Afterward, Browner became a founding member of the Albright Group and Albright Capital Management during the 2000s (decade). She also served on a number of boards of directors and committees dealing with environmental issues. Her director role in the Obama administration was sometimes informally referred to as the "Energy Czar" or "Climate Czar". Her efforts towards getting comprehensive climate and energy legislation passed in Congress came to no avail, but she assumed a prominent role in the federal government's response to the BP ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill during 2010. She left her position in 2011 and the job itself was abolished shortly thereafter.

Early life and education

Born in Miami, Florida, Browner is the daughter of Isabella Harty-Hugues and Michael Browner, both of whom were professors at Miami Dade Community College, in social science and English respectively. She has two younger sisters. Browner grew up in South Miami, and her hikes in the nearby Everglades – only a bicycle ride away from her house – gave her a close connection to the natural world: "I was very shaped by growing up in that kind of environment where nature was right there."

Browner received her B.A. degree from the University of Florida in 1977, majoring in English. She then graduated from the University of Florida College of Law with a J.D. degree in 1979.

Early career

During 1980 and 1981, Browner worked as General Counsel for the Florida House of Representatives Committee on Government Operations. There she helped revise Florida's Conservation and Recreational Lands Program. In 1983, she moved to Washington, D.C. and worked as associate director for the national Citizen Action group, a grassroots lobbying organization that was active in environmental issues.

Browner met Michael Podhorzer, a specialist in health-care issues at Citizen Action, in 1983. They married in 1987 and lived in Takoma Park, Maryland. They have a son, Zachary, born in 1987.

Between 1986 and 1988, Browner served as chief legislative assistant to Democratic U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles from Florida. In that role, she worked on a complex negotiation to expand Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve as well as on a ban on offshore drilling nearby the Florida Keys. During 1989, she served as a legal counsel for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. She was not averse to in-field investigation, and once dived in coastal waters to do research while pregnant.

From 1988 to 1991, Browner worked as legislative director for Senator Al Gore, and became known as a Gore protégé. She helped prepare amendments to the Clean Air Act and managed Gore's legislative staff.

Secretary of Environmental Regulation for Florida

As Secretary of Environmental Regulation, Browner headed the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation from 1991 to 1993, while living in Tallahassee. It was the nation's third-largest such state agency, with 1,500 employees and a budget of some $650 million. There she believed that economic development and environmental protection did not have to be in conflict with each other. She revitalized the demoralized department and turned it into one of the most active in the Florida state government. She shortened the amount of time it took the department to review development permits for wetlands-affected areas and for manufacturing plants; in doing so, she annoyed some environmentalists who thought that the streamlined procedures diminished public review.

Browner pushed for the halting of construction of new hazardous waste plants and municipal waste incinerators, on the grounds that health and environment consequences were insufficiently known. She brokered a deal with Walt Disney World that would allow it to build on wetlands it owned, in exchange for $40 million of work by Disney to restore endangered wetlands nearby. She pleased environmentalists by persuading Chiles, who had become governor, to negotiate a settlement to a federal lawsuit regarding damage to Everglades National Park and forcing the Florida sugar industry to bear much of the $1 billion cost. The head of Florida's largest business trade association described dealing with Browner: "She kicks the door open, throws in a hand grenade, and then walks in to shoot who's left. She really doesn't like to compromise. [But she] has done a pretty good job down here. People have more complaints with the way she does it than what she does."

EPA Administrator

Nomination and confirmation

After the 1992 presidential election, Browner served as transition director for Vice President-elect Gore. President-elect Bill Clinton announced her as his choice for Environmental Protection Agency head on December 11, 1992. While both Clinton and Gore had criticized the George H. W. Bush administration's commitment to environmental protection during the campaign, the selection of Browner – who was described by ''The Washington Post'' as having "the mind and training of an attorney-legislator but the soul of an activist" – was seen as an indication that Gore's ardent environmentalism had won out over Clinton's more pro-business mindset. Clinton later wrote that he had not known her, but that Chiles had recommended her highly and Gore had requested she be named. The pick, along with several others of Gore protégés that Clinton made, helped solidify the vice president's position within the administration. At her confirmation hearings before the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Browner came across as pragmatic and allayed fears that she would be excessively influenced by or tied to Gore. She was confirmed by the unanimous consent of the United States Senate on January 21, 1993.

She and Podhorzer returned to Takoma Park, Maryland, and he continued to work at Citizen Action. Her long-term goal was "to leave the world a slightly better place," and she practiced various environmentally beneficial practices at home. She avoided the Nannygate problems of some of Clinton's other early female nominees by having never used a nanny. She continued to lead an active outdoor life via bicycling, skiing, and jogging.

First four years

At the EPA, Browner supervised some 17,000 employees and a $7 billion budget. Early in her administration, she angered some EPA employees by publicly stating that the organization lacked management accountability and discipline and was wasting taxpayer money. Soon after taking office, Browner and her top aides, including assistant administrator for enforcement Steven Herman, reorganized several awkward and inefficient agency enforcement structures into a single Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. The EPA's regional offices were permitted flexibility in reworking their own enforcement structures, however, which led to some bureaucratic conflicts.

Browner found criticism from both sides of environmental issues and battled many environmentalists, who objected to her support for repeal of the 1958 Delaney clause regarding permissible levels of carcinogens in foods. Her announcement in May 1993 that the EPA would impose a moratorium on new incinerator and industrial furnace licensing drew support from environmentalists, however. A move by Clinton to elevate the EPA and Browner to Cabinet-level status failed in late 1993 to gain sufficient Congressional support. Many of her legislative desires had to take a back seat to the higher-priority 1993 Clinton health care plan.

When the Republican Party took control of Congress after the 1994 U.S. elections, Browner took the lead for the Clinton administration in successfully fighting efforts by the Republicans, especially in the House of Representatives, to amend the Clean Water Act and to roll back other environmental regulations. She was able to work in a bipartisan manner, though, with Republicans in helping craft amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act and passage of the Food Quality Protection Act. During the budget-cutting negotiations surrounding the federal government shutdown in 1995, Browner successfully protected the EPA's review and enforcement powers and managed to gain over $750 million in increased spending for the agency. Her bureaucratic effectiveness illustrated what one of her top aides characterized as her talent: "an extreme focus on a single issue where she is completely certain that she is right."

Two initiatives begun by the Clinton administration under Browner's tenure were part of its "reinventing government" program and sought to realize the notion of environmental contracts as a way of expanding the EPA's flexible public-private partnerships, as an alternative to traditional regulation. Project XL in 1995 was designed to find common sense, cost effective solutions to environmental issues at individual facilities, while the Common Sense Initiative in 1994 was targeted at efforts involving entire industry sectors, rather than dealing with issues on a crisis-by-crisis, pollutant-by-pollutant basis. Project XL had mixed results, with some success stories but an uncertain legal basis regarding enforcement and less active participation than envisioned. The more ambitious Common Sense Initiative, which somewhat resembled the environmental covenants appearing in some European countries and also incorporated the viewpoints of environmental justice, showed limitations in some areas but successes in the printing and metal finishing and plating industries before being concluded in 1998.

In March 1995, Browner and the EPA were charged by the House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs with violating the federal Anti-Lobbying Act (18 U.S. Code § 1913) by faxing unsolicited material opposing the Republican-sponsored regulatory reform package to various corporations and public-interest groups. Browner denied the accusation, saying the charge was an attempt to keep her from debating a possible rollback of health and environmental protections.

As EPA administrator, Browner started the agency's successful Brownfields Program in 1995. The program helped facilitate cleanups of brownfield lands and their contaminated facilities, especially in urban areas, by empowering states, communities, and assorted stakeholders in economic development. It leveraged more than $1 billion in public and private funds for cleanups and created thousands of new jobs, while enabling hundreds of communities to bring idle properties back into productive use.

Second four years

Perhaps Browner's biggest triumph came in 1997, when she convinced Clinton to support a stringent tightening of the Clean Air Act's National Ambient Air Quality Standards regarding permissible levels of the ground-level ozone that makes up smog and the fine airborne particulate matter that makes up soot. The decision came after months of public review of the proposed new standards that became the most divisive environmental debate of the decade. There was a long and fierce internal discussion within the administration, with opposition from the president's economic advisers echoing strong objections from some industry groups who said the costs of the new standards would far outweigh any benefits and that Browner had exaggerated the degree of certainty behind the EPA's scientific reviews on the matter. Over eighty environmental and health groups, who had grown quite frustrated with the administration's preference for minimal-cost incremental actions in the area, pressured Vice President Gore to take a stand on the matter, but he remained silent. Browner's adamant defense in favor of the new standards was conducted almost single-handedly, in private meetings, Congressional testimony, and public debate, and had come in the face of a silence from the White House that had put at risk her standing within the administration. Some within the administration objected to her unwillingness to modify her stance and even suggested she be fired for insubordination. Ultimately, Gore lent behind-the-scenes support in favor of the new regulations, which was a key factor in Clinton's final decision in Browner's favor. Overall, the ''New York Times'' termed Browner's actions "a remarkable piece of bureaucratic bravura" and ''Time'' magazine labelled Browner the "Queen of Clean Air". As the decision was announced, one which would affect hundreds of American cities and towns, Browner said: "These new standards will provide new health protections to 125 million Americans, including 35 million children."

The change to the standards had to survive Congressional review, but the support of Republicans from the northeast, especially New York Senator Al D'Amato, helped compensate for Democrats opposed to them. The new regulations were challenged in the courts by industry groups as a violation of the U.S. Constitution's nondelegation principle and eventually landed in the U.S. Supreme Court, whose 2001 unanimous ruling in the case now titled ''Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, Inc.'' largely upheld Browner's and the EPA's actions. Browner and the EPA also took action against air pollution caused by motor vehicles, issuing standards in 1999 that for the first time included light trucks and sport utility vehicles to meet the same emission standards as cars, and that would require the sulfur content of gasoline to be reduced by 90 percent over five years.

During her tenure, Browner also began efforts to deal with global warming, giving the EPA authority to regulate carbon emissions causing climate change, although the EPA under the following George W. Bush administration chose not to use that authority. Several other policies of hers were reversed in the Bush administration as well.

During Browner's tenure, there were many reports from African American employees of racism directed at them from a network of "good old boys" who dominated the agency's middle management. The most known of these reports involved policy specialist Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, who in 1997 filed suit against the agency; in 2000, the court found the EPA guilty of discrimination against Coleman-Adebayo, and awarded her $300,000. Coleman-Adebayo said that Browner allowed the problems to persist rather than trying to clean them up. In an October 2000 Congressional hearing on the matter, Browner emphasized that minorities had tripled in number in the agency's senior rank during her time as administrator, but was unable to explain why the culprits in Coleman-Adebayo's case had not been dismissed and in some cases had been promoted. Congressional dissatisfaction with the situation and the EPA's treatment of Coleman-Adebayo led to passage of the No-FEAR Act in 2002, which prohibits federal managers and supervisors from engaging in unlawful discrimination and retaliation.

In the final days of the Clinton administration, D.C. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered the EPA to preserve under the Freedom of Information Act all documents possibly relevant to last-minute EPA regulation issuances. In 2003, Lamberth found the EPA in contempt for not having preserved Browner's files, but did not find Browner or other officials in contempt. Browner had said that she had not been aware of the court order and that the computer material she had removed was not work-related.

During her EPA tenure, Browner became unpopular with a number of industry groups, especially utilities and heavy manufacturing, as well as with conservatives in Congress, who thought businesses were stifled by her policies. She also battled the Treasury Department at times, and sometimes opposed Clinton himself, who tended to give priority to economic growth over environmental considerations. Nonetheless, Browner was the longest-serving administrator in the history of the agency, staying through both terms of the Clinton presidency – and in the type of position that often sees turnover every three or four years. Robert W. Collin, author of a 2005 text on the agency, assessed her as "one of the ablest administrators ever to lead the EPA," and wrote that she was "completely fearless in her engagement with controversial environmental issues." Clinton himself later stated that Browner had accumulated a long list of important achievements.

Business career

After the Clinton administration, Browner became a founding member of the Albright Group, a "global strategy group" headed by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. As a principal, Browner assisted businesses and other organizations with the challenges of operating internationally, including complying with environmental regulations and climate change. Coca-Cola and Merck & Co. have been among the clients for such international assistance. She also became a founding member and principal of Albright Capital Management, an investment advisory company. During 2002, she taught classes at the study abroad program of her alma mater, now named the Fredric G. Levin College of Law.

Browner is now married to former Congressman Thomas Downey. The marriage, his second, her third, took place on June 21, 2007, in Riverhead, New York. Downey heads a lobbying firm representing clients in the energy industry. In 2006, she and Downey collaborated on behalf of Dubai Ports World, but were unable to persuade Senator Charles Schumer to their viewpoint during the Dubai Ports World controversy.

Browner joined the board of the National Audubon Society in 2001 and became chair in 2003; her term expired in 2008. She also joined the board of the Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization founded by Gore in 2006. In 2008, she joined the board of APX, Inc., which specializes in technology infrastructure for the environmental commodities markets including those for carbon offsets and the CDM Gold Standard. She was also on the founding board of the Center for American Progress as well as the boards of the Alliance for Climate Protection and the League of Conservation Voters. She left all of these boards in late 2008 when she was named to serve in the Obama administration. Until summer 2008 she was a member of Socialist International's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, although the commission's web site still had her listed as a member in January 2009.

Her income in 2008 was between $1 million and $5 million from lobbying firm Downey McGrath Group, where her husband was a principal. She also reported $450,000 in "member distribution" income, plus retirement and other benefits from the Albright Group.

Browner retained a political voice during her business career, describing the George W. Bush administration as "the worst environmental administration ever." She also stated that global warming is "the greatest challenge ever faced". In the 2008 presidential election, she was a strong supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination. After Clinton lost her bid, Browner campaigned for Barack Obama in several battleground states and in League of Conservation Voters events.

Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy

On November 5, 2008, Browner was named to the advisory board of the Obama-Biden Transition Project.

On December 15, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama named Browner as Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. Officially known as the Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, she acted as a coordinator for environmental, energy, climate, transport and related matters for the federal government. Her position was sometimes informally described as the "Energy Czar" or the "Climate Czar". It did not require Senate confirmation. Her participation on the Commission for a Sustainable World Society drew criticism from some Republican members of Congress, but the Obama transition team said there was nothing wrong with it. In any case, her power and influence relied primarily on persuasion: "I don't have any independent policymaking authority. It's not like when I was at EPA and I could depend on regulation." Browner's deputy assistant was Heather Zichal, a former legislative director for Senator John Kerry.

The early months of the Obama administration found her working well with the Cabinet members. She was a key negotiator between the administration and automakers in formulating the new United States emission standards in May 2009, and also was a member of the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry that bailed out American automakers. She successfully urged incorporation of tens of billions of dollars for renewable energy programs into the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. She was a central player in negotiation with Congress of the United States Carbon Cap and Trade Program, seemingly more so than U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and continued to stress its importance despite the Obama health care plan being the top legislative priority overall. Environmentalists viewed her as a critical liaison to the White House. By September 2009, Republican members of Congress expressed concern that her access to the president had usurped power from other agencies. She also became a brief target of fervent anti-"czar" radio and television commentator Glenn Beck, following the Van Jones resignation.

In October 2009, Browner conceded that congressional passage of the cap-and-trade legislation before the end of year was unlikely, and feared its absence would harm prospects for meaningful international agreement at the Copenhagen United Nations Climate Change Conference in December. By the next month, she moderated her concern, but expressed opposition to any congressional "slicing and dicing" that would separate energy and climate concerns. Attempts to pass any kind of climate legislation collapsed in July 2010 due to lack of enough votes in the Senate; Browner appeared on behalf of the administration and said, "Obviously, everyone is disappointed that we do not yet have an agreement on comprehensive legislation."

In 2010, Browner became a key part of the administration team handling, and one of the more visible administration figures in issuing public comments about, the BP ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In late May 2010 she assessed the spill as "probably the biggest environmental disaster we have ever faced in this country" and said that the administration was "prepared for the worst". She added that "I think what the American people need to know that it is possible we will have oil leaking from this well until August, when the relief wells will be finished." Mike Allen of ''Politico'' later wrote that "[Browner's] calm, authoritative television presence during the BP oil disaster made her one of the few officials whose stature was enhanced in the aftermath of the Gulf catastrophe."

With Republicans taking over the House of Representatives following the 2010 midterm elections, chances of climate and energy legislation passing that embodied Browner's and the administration's goals were essentially nil, and Obama conceded as much. As the Obama administration neared its two-year mark and a number of personnel changes were underway, there was a possibility that Browner might be named to another position with broader responsibilities, such as White House Deputy Chief of Staff. But that did not come to pass.

Instead, in late January 2011, White House officials disclosed that Browner would be leaving her position in the fairly near future. Browner said of her unexpected decision, "[there's] no back story – it was just time to go" and that she felt "honored to have a second ... chance to serve." League of Conservation Voters president Gene Karpinski characterized Browner as a "tenacious advocate on our issues" who would be "sorely missed", while a member of the law and energy industry lobbying firm Bracewell & Giuliani said Browner's exit was a good development and that "Her departure may be part of a legitimate effort to pay careful attention to addressing some of the real regulatory obstacles in the way of job creation in the United States." Browner left the White House during March 2011. Her general responsibilities were taken over by her second-in-command, Heather Zichal, from a position within the U.S. Domestic Policy Council.

In late February 2011, while Browner was still in place, the House voted to eliminate the Director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy position altogether. While the move was part of an overall effort to get rid of Obama's "czars", Browner was a particular focus of it. Representative Steve Scalise, who led the effort, said of Browner, "Let her leave, and take the funding, too." In the mid-April 2011 federal spending agreement that averted a possible government shutdown, funding for the position was indeed eliminated (as were three other "czar" roles, most of which were similarly vacant). Obama issued a signing statement protesting the move and saying he would not abide by it, but the point was largely moot as the positions in question, including the Browner one, had already been moved inside the Domestic Policy Council.

Return to business and advocacy

Browner rejoined the Center for American Progress in April 2011 as a Distinguished Senior Fellow and a member of the organization's Executive Committee. She also rejoined the Albright firm, now known due to merger as the Albright Stonebridge Group, as a Senior Counselor whose responsibilities included providing strategic services to clients in assorted areas of environmental impact. She continued to speak publicly on environmental issues and indicated she was "disappointed" by the Obama administration's September 2011 decision to drop toughening of low-altitude ozone levels in the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

Awards and honors

In April 1997, Browner received the Outstanding Mother of the Year Award from the National Mother's Day Committee "for her dedication to providing 'children with a safer, healthier world.'" Browner also has received ''Glamour'' magazine's Woman of the Year Award, the Ambulatory Pediatric Association's Advocate for Children Award, the South Florida Chapter of the Audubon Society's Guy M. Bradley Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Lifetime Environmental Achievement Award from the New York State Bar Association. In 1998 she received Vice President Gore's Hammer Award for helping to make government cost less and work better. In 2000, she received the American Lung Association's President's Award for leadership towards "the toughest action in a generation to safeguard public health from the threats posed by air pollution."

See also

List of U.S. executive branch czars

References

Bibliography

External links

Carol M. Browner - EPA History: EPA's Administrators

Category:1955 births Category:Administrators of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Category:American environmentalists Category:Clinton Administration commissioners Category:Florida Democrats Category:Florida lawyers Category:Living people Category:Obama Administration personnel Category:People from Miami-Dade County, Florida Category:People from Montgomery County, Maryland Category:Spouses of members of the United States House of Representatives Category:State cabinet secretaries of Florida Category:University of Florida College of Law alumni Category:Women in business Category:Women in Florida politics

de:Carol M. Browner it:Carol Browner ru:Браунер, Кэрол

Frank Chodorov (February 15, 1887–1966) was an American member of the Old Right, a group of libertarian thinkers who were non-interventionist in foreign policy and opposed both the American entry into World War II and the New Deal. He was called by Ralph Raico "the last of the Old Right greats."

Early life

Chodorov was born Fishel Chodorowsky on the Lower West Side of New York in 1887, the eleventh child of Russian immigrants. He graduated from Columbia University in 1907, then worked at a number of jobs around the country. While working in Chicago (1912–17), he read Henry George's ''Progress and Poverty.'' Chodorov wrote that he "read the book several times, and each time I felt myself slipping into a cause." According to Chodorov: }}

Henry George School

In 1937, Chodorov became director of the Henry George School of Social Science in New York. There he established (with Will Lissner) and edited a school paper, ''The Freeman''. It published articles by Albert Jay Nock (founder of an earlier journal also called ''The Freeman''), as well as such leading figures of the day as John Dewey, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Lincoln Steffens and Thorsten Veblen. Chodorov used the magazine to express his antiwar views:

With the coming of World War II such views were no longer tolerated: Chodorov was ousted from the school in 1942. He wrote that "it seemed to me then that the only thing for me to do was to blow my brains out, which I might have done if I had not had Albert Jay Nock by my side." Nock had weathered similar "war fever" during World War I when, as editor of the antiwar journal ''The Nation'', he had seen that magazine banned from the U.S. mails by the Wilson administration.

''Analysis''

Chodorov published articles in a variety of magazines, including H.L. Mencken's ''American Mercury'', the ''Saturday Evening Post'' and ''Scribner's''. In 1944, he launched a four-page monthly broadsheet called ''analysis'', described as "an individualistic publication—the only one of its kind in America." Murray Rothbard called it "one of the best, though undoubtedly the most neglected, of the 'little magazines' that has ever been published in the United States."

Along with Nock's works, Chodorov was influenced by Franz Oppenheimer's ''The State'': "[B]etween the state and the individual there is always a tug-of-war," wrote Chodorov, "whatever power one acquires must be to the detriment of the other." Attracting a modest subscriber base, the magazine merged with the conservative weekly ''Human Events'' in 1951, where Chodorov became an associate editor.

''The Freeman''

In 1954, Chodorov again became editor of ''The Freeman'', in its new incarnation, revived under the auspices of Foundation for Economic Education. He engaged with William F. Buckley and Willi Schlamm on the question of whether individualists should support interventionism to aid people resisting communist aggression. Chodorov continued to advocate non-intervention, but as the Cold War continued, he lost influence: the American conservative movement came to be a bastion of interventionist foreign policy in combating Soviet expansionism.

Intercollegiate Society of Individualists

In 1953, Chodorov founded the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI), with William F. Buckley, Jr. as president, becoming the first national conservative student organization, reaching 50,000 members by the end of the century. In later years, ISI became extremely influential as a clearinghouse of conservative publications and as a locus of the conservative intellectual movement in America. It later evolved into the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Chodorov was a major influence on many of those who would go on to lead the libertarian and conservative movements, including Buckley, M. Stanton Evans, Murray Rothbard, Edmund A. Opitz, and James J. Martin. Rothbard, an economist, wrote: }}

Personal life

A secular Jew, Chodorov returned to belief in Judaism in later years. He was an avid fan of westerns.

Works

''The Economics of Society, Government and State'' (1946)

''One is a Crowd: Reflections of an Individualist'' (1952) (E-book.)

''The Income Tax: Root of All Evil'' (1952) (E-book.)

''The Rise & Fall of Society: An Essay on the Economic Forces That Underline Social Institutions'' (1959) (E-Book.)

''Flight to Russia'' (1959)

''Out of Step: The Autobiography of an Individualist'' (1962) (E-book.)

''Fugitive Essays'' (1980) (Available online.)

References

External links

Who Is Frank Chodorov? by Murray Rothbard

Frank Chodorov Literature Archive at Mises.org

Frank Chodorov Daily Article Archives at Mises.org

Frank Chodorov, Nonvoter by Jeff Riggenbach

Frank Chodorov, Educator by Jeff Riggenbach

Frank Chodorov: Archives at LewRockwell.com

Category:1887 births Category:1966 deaths Category:American foreign policy writers Category:American libertarians Category:Jewish American writers Category:Georgists Category:Libertarian theorists Category:Old Right (United States)

es:Frank Chodorov it:Frank Chodorov zh:弗兰克·乔多洛夫

Name	Jacques Chirac
Office	President of France
Primeminister	Alain JuppéLionel JospinJean-Pierre RaffarinDominique de Villepin
Term start	17 May 1995
Term end	16 May 2007
Predecessor	François Mitterrand
Successor	Nicolas Sarkozy
Office1	Co-Prince of Andorra
Alongside1	Joan Martí Alanis, Joan Enric Vives Sicília
Primeminister1	Marc Forné MolnéAlbert Pintat
Term start1	17 May 1995
Term end1	16 May 2007
Predecessor1	François Mitterrand
Successor1	Nicolas Sarkozy
Office2	Prime Minister of France
President2	François Mitterrand
Term start2	20 March 1986
Term end2	10 May 1988
Predecessor2	Laurent Fabius
Successor2	Michel Rocard
President3	Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
Term start3	27 May 1974
Term end3	26 August 1976
Predecessor3	Pierre Messmer
Successor3	Raymond Barre
Office4	Mayor of Paris
Term start4	20 March 1977
Term end4	16 May 1995
Predecessor4	Position established
Successor4	Jean Tiberi
Office5	Minister of the Interior
Primeminister5	Pierre Messmer
Term start5	27 February 1974
Term end5	28 May 1974
Predecessor5	Raymond Marcellin
Successor5	Michel Poniatowski
Office6	Minister of Agriculture
Primeminister6	Pierre Messmer
Term start6	7 July 1972
Term end6	27 February 1974
Predecessor6	Michel Cointat
Successor6	Raymond Marcellin
Birth date	November 29, 1932
Birth place	Paris, France
Party	Communist Party (Before 1962)Union for the New Republic (1962–1968)Union of Democrats for the Republic (1968–1976)Rally for the Republic (1976–2002)Union for a Popular Movement (2002–present)
Spouse	Bernadette de Courcel (1956–present)
Children	2 daughters
Alma mater	Institute of Political Studies, ParisHarvard UniversityNational School of Administration
Religion	Roman Catholic
Signature	Jacques Chirac Signature.svg }}

Jacques René Chirac (; ; born 29 November 1932) is a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. He previously served as Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988 (making him the only person to hold the position of Prime Minister twice under the Fifth Republic), and as Mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995.

Chirac was briefly a Communist in his late teens. After completing his studies of the DEA's degree at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, a term at Harvard University and the École nationale d'administration (ENA), Chirac began his career as a high-level civil servant, and soon entered politics. He subsequently occupied various senior positions, including Minister of Agriculture, Minister of the Interior, Prime Minister, Mayor of Paris, and finally President of the French Republic.

Chirac's internal policies included lower tax rates, the removal of price controls, strong punishment for crime and terrorism, and business privatisation. He also argued for more socially responsible economic policies, and was elected in 1995 after campaigning on a platform of healing the "social rift" (''fracture sociale''). After less statist policy when he was Prime Minister (1986–1988), he changed his method. Then, his economic policies, based on ''dirigisme'', state-directed ideals, stood in opposition to the ''laissez-faire'' policies of the United Kingdom, which Chirac famously described as "Anglo-Saxon ultraliberalism". Chirac is the second-longest serving President of France (two full terms, the first of seven years and the second of five years), after François Mitterrand. As President, he also served as an ''ex officio'' Co-Prince of Andorra and Grand Master of the French Légion d'honneur.

On 15 December 2011, the Paris court declared him guilty of diverting public funds and abusing public confidence, and gave Chirac a two-year suspended prison sentence.

Family, early life, education, and early career

Chirac, born in the Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire clinic (Paris V^e), is the son of Abel François Chirac (1893–1968), a successful executive for an aircraft company, and Marie-Louise Valette (1902–1973), a housewife. His great grandparents on both sides were peasants, but his two grandfathers were teachers from Sainte-Féréole in Corrèze. According to Chirac, his name "originates from the langue d'oc, that of the troubadours, therefore that of poetry". He is a Roman Catholic.

Chirac was an only child (his elder sister, Jacqueline, died in infancy before his birth), and was educated in Paris at the Lycée Carnot and at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. After his baccalauréat, he served for three months as a sailor on a coal-transporter.

Chirac played rugby union for Brive's youth team, and also played at university level. He played no. 8 and second row.

In 1956, he married Bernadette Chodron de Courcel, with whom he had two daughters: Laurence (born 4 March 1958) and Claude (14 January 1962). Claude has long worked as a public relations assistant and personal adviser, while Laurence, who suffered from anorexia nervosa in her youth, does not participate in the political activities of her father. Chirac is the grandfather of Martin Rey-Chirac by the relationship of Claude with French judoka Thierry Rey. Jacques and Bernadette Chirac also have a foster daughter, Anh Dao Traxel.

Inspired by General Charles de Gaulle, Chirac started to pursue a civil service career in the 1950s. During this period, he joined the French Communist Party, sold copies of ''L'Humanité'', and took part in meetings of a communist cell. In 1950, he signed the Soviet-inspired Stockholm Appeal for the abolition of nuclear weapons – which led him to be questioned when he applied for his first visa to the United States.

In 1953, after graduating from "Sciences Po" (more formally known as the Paris Institute of Political Studies), he attended Harvard University's summer school, before entering the ENA, the Grande école National School of Administration, which trains France's top civil servants, in 1957.

Chirac trained as a reserve military officer in armoured cavalry at Saumur, where he was ranked first in his year. He then volunteered to fight in the Algerian War, using personal connections to be sent despite the reservations of his superiors. His superiors did not want to make him an officer because they suspected he had communist leanings. After leaving the ENA in 1959, he became a civil servant in the Court of Auditors.

Early political career, Cabinet Minister

In April 1962, Chirac was appointed head of the personal staff of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou. This appointment launched Chirac's political career. Pompidou considered Chirac his protégé, and referred to him as "my bulldozer" for his skill at getting things done. The nickname "Le Bulldozer" caught on in French political circles. Chirac still maintains this reputation. In 1995 an anonymous British diplomat said Chirac "cuts through the crap and comes straight to the point...It's refreshing, although you have to put your seat belt on when you work with him".

At Pompidou's suggestion, Chirac ran as a Gaullist for a seat in the National Assembly in 1967. He was elected deputy for his home Corrèze ''département'', a stronghold of the left. This surprising victory in the context of a Gaullist ebb permitted him to enter the government as Minister of Social Affairs. Although Chirac was well-situated in de Gaulle's entourage, being related by marriage to the general's sole companion at the time of the Appeal of 18 June 1940, he was more of a "Pompidolian" than a "Gaullist". When student and worker unrest rocked France in May 1968, Chirac played a central role in negotiating a truce. Then, as state secretary of economy (1968–1971), he worked closely with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who headed the ministry of economy and finance.

After some months in the ministry of relations with Parliament, Chirac's first high-level post came in 1972 when he became Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development under Pompidou, who had been elected president in 1969, after de Gaulle retired. Chirac quickly earned a reputation as a champion of French farmers' interests, and first attracted international attention when he assailed U.S., West German, and European Commission agricultural policies which conflicted with French interests.

On 27 February 1974, after the resignation of Raymond Marcellin, Chirac was appointed Minister of the Interior. On 21 March 1974, he cancelled the SAFARI project due to privacy concerns after its existence was revealed by ''Le Monde''. From March 1974, he was entrusted by President Pompidou with preparations for the presidential election then scheduled for 1976. These elections were moved forward because of Pompidou's sudden death on 2 April 1974.

Chirac vainly attempted to rally Gaullists behind Prime minister Pierre Messmer. Jacques Chaban-Delmas announced his candidacy in spite of the disapproval of the "Pompidolians". Chirac and others published the ''call of the 43'' in favour of Giscard d'Estaing, the leader of the non-Gaullist part of the parliamentary majority. Giscard d'Estaing was elected as Pompidou's successor after France's most competitive election campaign in years. In return, the new president chose Chirac to lead the cabinet.

Prime Minister (1974–1976)

When Giscard became president, he nominated Chirac as prime minister on 27 May 1974, in order to reconcile the "Giscardian" and "non-Giscardian" factions of the parliamentary majority. At the age of 41, Chirac stood out as the very model of the ''jeunes loups'' ("young wolves") of French politics, but he was faced with the hostility of the "Barons of Gaullism" who considered him a traitor for his role during the previous presidential campaign. In December 1974, he took the lead of the Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR) against the will of its more senior personalities.

As prime minister, Chirac quickly set about persuading the Gaullists that, despite the social reforms proposed by President Giscard, the basic tenets of Gaullism, such as national and European independence, would be retained. Chirac was advised by Pierre Juillet and Marie-France Garaud, two former advisers of Pompidou. These two organised the campaign against Chaban-Delmas in 1974. They advocated a clash with Giscard d'Estaing because they thought his policy bewildered the conservative electorate. Citing Giscard's unwillingness to give him authority, Chirac resigned as Prime Minister in 1976. He proceeded to build up his political base among France's several conservative parties, with a goal of reconstituting the Gaullist UDR into a neo-Gaullist group, the Rally for the Republic (RPR).

Osirak controversy

At the invitation of Saddam Hussein (then vice-president of Iraq, but ''de facto'' dictator), Chirac made an official visit to Baghdad in 1975. Saddam approved a deal granting French oil companies a number of privileges plus a 23 per cent share of Iraqi oil. As part of this deal, France sold Iraq the Osirak MTR nuclear reactor, a type designed to test nuclear materials.

The Israeli Air Force alleged that the reactor's imminent commissioning was a threat to its security, and pre-emptively bombed the Osirak reactor on 7 June 1981, provoking considerable anger from French officials and the United Nations Security Council.

The Osirak deal became a controversy again in 2002–2003, when an international military coalition led by the United States invaded Iraq and forcibly removed Hussein's government from power. France led several other European countries in an effort to prevent the invasion. The Osirak deal was then used by parts of the American media to criticise the Chirac-led opposition to starting a war in Iraq, despite French involvement in the Gulf War.

Mayor of Paris (1977–1995)

After his departure from the cabinet, Chirac wanted to gain the leadership of the political right, in order to gain the French presidency in the future. The RPR was conceived as an electoral machine against President Giscard d'Estaing. Paradoxically, Chirac benefited from Giscard's decision to create the office of mayor in Paris, which had been in abeyance since the 1871 Commune, because the leaders of the Third Republic (1871–1940) feared that having municipal control of the capital would give the mayor too much power. In 1977, Chirac stood as a candidate against Michel d'Ornano, a close friend of the president, and he won. As mayor of Paris, Chirac's political influence grew. He held this post until 1995.

Chirac supporters point out that, as mayor, he provided programs to help the elderly, people with disabilities, and single mothers, and introduced the street-cleaning Motocrotte, while providing incentives for businesses to stay in Paris. His opponents contend that he installed "clientelist" policies.

Accused of corruption, convicted

Chirac has been named in several cases of alleged corruption that occurred during his term as mayor, some of which have led to felony convictions of some politicians and aides. However, a controversial judicial decision in 1999 granted Chirac immunity while he was president of France. He refused to testify on these matters, arguing that it would be incompatible with his presidential functions. Investigations concerning the running of Paris's city hall, the number of whose municipal employees jumped by 25% from 1977 to 1995 (with 2,000 out of approximately 35,000 coming from the Corrèze region where Chirac had held his seat as deputy), as well as a lack of financial transparency (''marchés publics'') and the communal debt, were thwarted by the legal impossibility of questioning him as president. The conditions of the privatisation of the Parisian water network, acquired very cheaply by the Générale and the Lyonnaise des Eaux, then directed by Jérôme Monod, a close friend of Chirac, were also criticised. Furthermore, the satirical newspaper ''Le Canard enchaîné'' revealed the astronomical "food expenses" paid by the Parisian municipality (€15 million a year according to the ''Canard''), expenses managed by Roger Romani (who allegedly destroyed all archives of the period 1978–1993 during night raids in 1999–2000). Thousands of people were invited each year to receptions in the Paris city hall, while many political, media and artistic personalities were hosted in private flats owned by the city.

Chirac's immunity from prosecution ended in May 2007, when he left office as president. In November 2007 a preliminary charge of misuse of public funds was filed against him. Chirac is said to be the first former French head of state to be formally placed under investigation for a crime. On 30 October 2009, a judge ordered Chirac to stand trial on embezzlement charges, dating back to his time as mayor of Paris.

On 15 December 2011, Chirac was found guilty in two related cases, involving 19 totally or partially fake jobs created for his benefit by the RPR Party, which he led as Paris mayor from 1977 to 1995. He was convicted of embezzling public funds, abuse of trust, and illegal conflict of interest.

Struggle for the right-wing leadership

In 1978, he attacked the pro-European policy of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (VGE), and made a nationalist turn with the December 1978 Call of Cochin, initiated by his counsellors Marie-France Garaud and Pierre Juillet, which had first been called by Pompidou. Hospitalised in Cochin hospital after a crash, he declared that "as always about the drooping of France, the pro-foreign party acts with its peaceable and reassuring voice". He appointed Ivan Blot, an intellectual who would later join the National Front, as director of his campaigns for the 1979 European election. After the poor results of the election, Chirac broke with Garaud and Juillet. His rivalry with Giscard d'Estaing intensified. Although it has been often interpreted by historians as the struggle between two rival French right-wing families (the Bonapartists, represented by Chirac, and the Orleanists, represented by VGE), both figures in fact were members of the Liberal, Orleanist tradition, according to historian Alain-Gérard Slama. But the eviction of the Gaullist Barons and of President VGE convinced Chirac to assume a strong neo-Gaullist stance.

Chirac made his first run for president against Giscard d'Estaing in the 1981 election, thus splitting the centre-right vote. He was eliminated in the first round with 18% of the vote. He reluctantly supported Giscard in the second round. He refused to give instructions to the RPR voters but said that he supported the incumbent president "in a private capacity", which was almost like a ''de facto'' support of the Socialist Party's (PS) candidate, François Mitterrand, who was elected by a broad majority.

Giscard has always blamed Chirac for his defeat. He was told by Mitterrand, before his death, that the latter had dined with Chirac before the election. Chirac told the Socialist candidate that he wanted to "get rid of Giscard". In his memoirs, Giscard wrote that between the two rounds, he phoned the RPR headquarters. He passed himself off as a right-wing voter by changing his voice. The RPR employee advised him "certainly do not vote Giscard!". After 1981, the relationship between the two men became tense, with Giscard, even though he was in the same government coalition as Chirac, criticising Chirac's actions openly.

After the May 1981 presidential election, the right also lost the subsequent legislative election that year. However, as Giscard had been knocked out, Chirac appeared as the principal leader of the right-wing opposition. Due to his attacks against the economic policy of the Socialist government, he gradually aligned himself with prevailing economic liberal opinion, even though it did not correspond with Gaullist doctrine. While the far-right National Front grew, taking advantage of a proportional representation electoral law, he signed an electoral platform with the Giscardian (and more or less Christian Democrat) party Union for French Democracy (UDF).

First "cohabitation" (1986–1988) and "desert crossing"

When the RPR/UDF right-wing coalition won a slight majority in the National Assembly in the 1986 election, Mitterrand (PS) appointed Chirac prime minister (though many in Mitterrand's inner circle lobbied him to choose Jacques Chaban-Delmas instead). This unprecedented power-sharing arrangement, known as cohabitation, gave Chirac the lead in domestic affairs. However, it is generally conceded that Mitterrand used the areas granted to the President of the Republic, or "reserved domains" of the Presidency, Defense and Foreign Affairs, to belittle his Prime Minister.

Chirac's second ministry

(20 March 1986 – 12 May 1988)

Jacques Chirac – Prime Minister

Jean-Bernard Raimond – Minister of Foreign Affairs

André Giraud – Minister of Defence

Charles Pasqua – Minister of the Interior

Édouard Balladur – Minister of Economy, Finance, and Privatisation

Alain Madelin – Minister of Industry, Tourism, Posts, and Telecommunications

Philippe Séguin – Minister of Employment and Social Affairs

Albin Chalandon – Minister of Justice

René Monory – Minister of National Education

François Léotard – Minister of Culture and Communications

François Guillaume – Minister of Agriculture

Bernard Pons – Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories

Pierre Méhaignerie – Minister of Housing, Equipment, Regional Planning, and Transport

André Rossinot – Minister of Relations with Parliament

Michel Aurillac – Minister of Cooperation

Chirac's cabinet sold many public companies, renewing with the liberalisation initiated under Laurent Fabius's Socialist government (1984–86 – in particular with Fabius' privatisation of the audiovisual sector, leading to the creation of Canal +), and abolished the solidarity tax on wealth (ISF), a symbolic tax on very high resources championed by Mitterrand's government. Elsewhere, the plan for university reform (plan Devaquet) caused a crisis in 1986 when a young man named Malik Oussekine (1964–1986) was killed by the police, leading to massive demonstrations and the proposal's withdrawal. It has been said during other student crises that this event strongly affected Jacques Chirac, who was hereafter careful about possible police violence during such demonstrations (i.e. maybe explaining part of the decision to "promulgate without applying" the First Employment Contract (CPE) after large student demonstrations against it).

One of his first acts concerning foreign policy was to call back Jacques Foccart (1913–1997), who had been de Gaulle's and his successors' leading counsellor for African matters, called by journalist Stephen Smith the "father of all "networks" on the continent, at the time [in 1986] aged 72." Jacques Foccart, who had also co-founded the Gaullist ''Service d'Action Civique'' (SAC, dissolved by Mitterrand in 1982) along with Charles Pasqua, and who was a key component of the "Françafrique" system, was again called to the Elysée Palace when Chirac won the 1995 presidential election. Furthermore, confronted by anti-colonialist movements in New Caledonia, Prime Minister Chirac ordered a military intervention against the separatists in the Ouvéa cave, leading to several tragic deaths. He allegedly refused any alliance with Jean-Marie Le Pen's ''Front National''.

1988 presidential elections and afterwards

Chirac ran against Mitterrand for a second time in the 1988 election. He obtained 20 percent of the vote in the first round, but lost the second with only 46 percent. He resigned from the cabinet and the right lost the next legislative election.

For the first time, his leadership over the RPR was challenged. Charles Pasqua and Philippe Séguin criticised his abandonment of Gaullist doctrines. On the right, a new generation of politicians, the "renovation men", accused Chirac and Giscard of being responsible for the electoral defeats. In 1992, convinced a man could not become President whilst advocating anti-European policies, he called for a "yes" vote in the referendum on the Maastricht Treaty, against the opinion of Pasqua, Séguin and a majority of the RPR voters, who chose to vote "no".

While he still was mayor of Paris (since 1977), Chirac went to Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire) where he supported President Houphouët-Boigny (1960–1993), although the latter was being called a "thief" by the local population. Chirac then declared that multipartism was a "kind of luxury."

Nevertheless, the right won the 1993 legislative election. Chirac announced that he did not want to come back as prime minister, suggesting the appointment of Edouard Balladur, who had promised that he would not run for the presidency against Chirac in 1995. However, benefiting from positive polls, Balladur decided to be a presidential candidate, with the support of a majority of right-wing politicians. Chirac broke at that time with a number of friends and allies, including Charles Pasqua, Nicolas Sarkozy, etc., who supported Balladur's candidacy. A small group of "fidels" would remain with him, including Alain Juppé and Jean-Louis Debré. When Nicolas Sarkozy became President in 2007, Juppé was one of the few "chiraquiens" to serve in François Fillon's government.

First term as President (1995–2002)

During the 1995 presidential campaign, Chirac criticised the "sole thought" (''pensée unique'') of neoliberalism represented by his challenger on the right and promised to reduce the "social fracture", placing himself more to the center and thus forcing Balladur to radicalise himself. Ultimately, he obtained more votes than Balladur in the first round (20.8 percent), and then defeated the Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin in the second round (52.6 percent).

Chirac was elected on a platform of tax cuts and job programs, but his policies did little to ease the labor strikes during his first months in office. On the domestic front, neo-liberal economic austerity measures introduced by Chirac and his conservative prime minister Alain Juppé, including budgetary cutbacks, proved highly unpopular. At about the same time, it became apparent that Juppé and others had obtained preferential conditions for public housing, as well as other perks. At the year's end Chirac faced major workers' strikes which turned itself, in November–December 1995, into a general strike, one of the largest since May 1968. The demonstrations were largely pitted against Juppé's plan on the reform of pensions, and led to the dismissal of the latter.

Shortly after taking office, Chiracundaunted by international protests by environmental groupsinsisted upon the resumption of nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia in 1995, a few months before signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Reacting to criticism, Chirac said, "You only have to look back at 1935...There were people then who were against France arming itself, and look what happened." On 1 February 1996, Chirac announced that France had ended "once and for all" its nuclear testing, intending to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Elected as President of the Republic, he refused to discuss the existence of French military bases in Africa, despite requests by the Ministry of Defence and the ''Quai d'Orsay'' (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). The French Army thus remained in Côte d'Ivoire as well as in Omar Bongo's Gabon.

In 1997, Chirac dissolved parliament for early legislative elections in a gamble designed to bolster support for his conservative economic program. But instead, it created an uproar, and his power was weakened by the subsequent backlash. The Socialist Party (PS), joined by other parties on the left, soundly defeated Chirac's conservative allies, forcing Chirac into a new period of cohabitation with Jospin as prime minister (1997–2002), which lasted five years.

Cohabitation significantly weakened the power of Chirac's presidency. The French president, by a constitutional convention, only controls foreign and military policy— and even then, allocation of funding is under the control of Parliament and under the significant influence of the prime minister. Short of dissolving parliament and calling for new elections, the president was left with little power to influence public policy regarding crime, the economy, and public services. Chirac seized the occasion to periodically criticise Jospin's government.

Nevertheless, his position was weakened by scandals about the financing of RPR by Paris municipality. In 2001, the left, represented by Bertrand Delanoë (PS), won over the majority in the town council of the capital. Jean Tiberi, Chirac's successor at the Paris townhall, was forced to resign after having been put under investigations in June 1999 on charges of ''trafic d'influences'' in the HLMs of Paris affairs (related to the illegal financing of the RPR). Tiberi was finally expelled from the RPR, Chirac's party, on 12 October 2000, declaring to the ''Figaro magazine'' on 18 November 2000: "Jacques Chirac is not my friend anymore". After the publication of the Méry video-tape by ''Le Monde'' on 22 September 2000, in which Jean-Claude Méry, in charge of the RPR's financing, directly accused Chirac of organizing the network, and of having been physically present on 5 October 1986, when Méry gave in cash 5 millions Francs, which came from companies who had benefited from state deals, to Michel Roussin, personal secretary (''directeur de cabinet'') of Chirac, Chirac refused to follow up his summons by judge Eric Halphen, and the highest echelons of the French justice declared that he could not been inculpated while in functions.

During his two terms, he increased the Elysee Palace's total budget by 105 percent (currently €90 million, whereas 20 years ago it was the equivalent of €43.7 million). He doubled the number of presidential cars – nowadays there are 61 cars and seven scooters in the Palace's garage. He has hired 145 extra employees – the total number of the people he employed simultaneously was 963.

Defence policy

As the Supreme Commander of the French armed forces, he has reduced the French military budget, as did his predecessor. It now accounts for three percent of GDP. In 1998 the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau (R98) was decommissioned after 37 years of service, and another aircraft carrier was decommissioned two years later after 37 years of service, leaving the French Navy with no aircraft carrier until 2001, when Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier was commissioned. He has also reduced expenditures on nuclear weapons and the French nuclear arsenal now includes 350 warheads, which can be compared to the Russian nuclear arsenal that consists of 16,000 warheads. He has also published a plan which assumes reducing the number of fighters the French military has by 30.

Second term as president (2002–2007)

At the age of 69, Chirac faced his fourth presidential campaign in 2002. He received just 20% of the vote in the first ballot of the presidential elections in April 2002. It had been expected that he would face incumbent prime minister Lionel Jospin (PS) in the second round of elections; instead, Chirac faced controversial far right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen of National Front (FN) who came in 200,000 votes ahead of Jospin. All parties outside the National Front (except for ''Lutte ouvrière'') called for opposing Le Pen, even if it meant voting for Chirac. The 14-day period between the two rounds of voting was marked by demonstrations against Le Pen and slogans such as "Vote for the crook, not for the fascist" or "Vote with a clothespin on your nose". Chirac won re-election by a landslide, with 82 percent of the vote on the second ballot. However, Chirac became increasingly unpopular during his second term. According to a July 2005 poll, 32 percent judged Chirac favorably and 63 percent unfavorably. In 2006, ''The Economist'' wrote that Chirac "is the most unpopular occupant of the Elysée Palace in the fifth republic's history."

Early term

As the left-wing Socialist Party was in thorough disarray following Jospin's defeat, Chirac reorganised politics on the right, establishing a new party – initially called the Union of the Presidential Majority, then the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). The RPR had broken down; A number of members had formed Eurosceptic breakaways. While the Giscardian liberals of the Union of French Democracy (UDF) had moved to the right. The UMP won the parliamentary elections that followed the presidential poll with ease.

During an official visit to Madagascar on 21 July 2005, Chirac described the repression of the 1947 Malagasy uprising, which left between 80,000 and 90,000 dead, as "unacceptable".

Despite past opposition to state intervention the Chirac government approved a 2.8 billion euro aid package to troubled manufacturing giant Alstom. In October 2004, Chirac signed a trade agreement with PRC President Hu Jintao where Alstom was given one billion euro in contracts and promises of future investment in China.

Assassination attempt

On 14 July 2002, during Bastille Day celebrations, Chirac survived an assassination attempt by a lone gunman with a rifle hidden in a guitar case. The would-be assassin fired a shot toward the presidential motorcade, before being overpowered by bystanders. The gunman, Maxime Brunerie, underwent psychiatric testing; the violent far-right group with which he was associated, Unité Radicale, was then administratively dissolved.

Stroke

In early September 2005, he suffered an event that his doctors described as a 'vascular incident'. It was reported as a 'minor stroke' or a mini-stroke (also known as a transient ischemic attack). He recovered and returned to his duties soon after.

2005 referendum on the TCE

On 29 May 2005, a referendum was held in France to decide whether the country should ratify the proposed treaty for a Constitution of the European Union (TCE). The result was a victory for the No campaign, with 55 percent of voters rejecting the treaty on a turnout of 69 percent, dealing a devastating blow to Chirac and the UMP party, as well as to part of the center-left which had supported the TCE.

Foreign policy

Along with Vladimir Putin (Chirac called Vladimir Putin "a personal friend".), Hu Jintao, and Gerhard Schröder, Chirac emerged as a leading voice against George W. Bush in 2003 during the organization and deployment of the United States led military coalition to forcibly remove the then current government of Iraq controlled by the Ba'ath Party under the leadership of Saddam Hussein and resulted in the 2003–2011 Iraq War. Despite intense US pressure, Chirac threatened to veto, at that given point, a resolution in the UN Security Council that would authorise the use of military force to rid Iraq of alleged weapons of mass destruction, and rallied other governments to his position. "Iraq today does not represent an immediate threat that justifies an immediate war", Chirac said on 18 March 2003. Chirac was then the target of various American and British commentators supporting the decisions of Bush and Tony Blair. Future Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin acquired much of his popularity for his speech against the war at the United Nations (UN). However, following controversies concerning the CIA's black sites and extraordinary rendition program, the press revealed that French special services had cooperated with Washington at the same time that Villepin was countering US foreign policy at the UN headquarters in New York.

After Togo's leader Gnassingbé Eyadéma's death on 5 February 2005, Chirac gave him tribute and supported his son, Faure Gnassingbé, who has since succeeded to his father.

On 19 January 2006, Chirac said that France was prepared to launch a nuclear strike against any country that sponsors a terrorist attack against French interests. He said his country's nuclear arsenal had been reconfigured to include the ability to make a tactical strike in retaliation for terrorism.

In July 2006, the G8 met to discuss international energy concerns. Despite the rising awareness of global warming issues, the G8 focuses on "energy security" issues. Chirac continues to be the voice within the G8 summit meetings to support international action to curb global warming and climate change concerns. Chirac warns that "humanity is dancing on a volcano" and calls for serious action by the world's leading industrialised nations.

2005 civil unrest and CPE protests

Following major student protests in spring 2006, which followed civil unrest in autumn 2005 after the death of two young boys in Clichy-sous-Bois, one of the poorest French commune located in Paris' suburbs, Chirac retracted the proposed First Employment Contract (CPE) by "promulgating [it] without applying it", an unheard-of – and, some claim, illegal – move destined to appease the protests while giving the appearance not to retract himself, and therefore to continue his support towards his Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

Flight tax

Chirac requested the ''Landau-report'' (published in September 2004) and combined with the ''Report of the Technical Group on Innovative Financing Mechanisms'' formulated upon request by the Heads of State of Brazil, Chile, France and Spain (issued in December 2004), these documents present various opportunities for innovative financing mechanisms while equally stressing the advantages (stability and predictability) of tax-based models. UNITAID project was born. Today the organisation executive board is chaired by Philippe Douste-Blazy.

The Clearstream affair

During April and May 2006, Chirac's administration was beset by a crisis as his chosen Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, was accused of asking Philippe Rondot, a top level French spy, for a secret investigation into Villepin's chief political rival, Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2004. This matter has been called the second Clearstream Affair. On 10 May 2006, following a Cabinet meeting, Chirac made a rare television appearance to try to protect Villepin from the scandal and to debunk allegations that Chirac himself had set up a Japanese bank account containing 300 million francs in 1992 as Mayor of Paris. Chirac said that "The Republic is not a dictatorship of rumors, a dictatorship of calumny."

Announcement of intention not to seek a third term

In a pre-recorded television broadcast aired on 11 March 2007, Jacques Chirac announced, in a widely predicted move, that he would not choose to seek a third term as France's President. "My whole life has been committed to serving France, and serving peace", Chirac said, adding that he would find new ways to serve France after leaving office. He did not explain the reasons for his decision. Chirac did not, during the broadcast, endorse any of the candidates running for election, but did devote several minutes of his talk to a plea against extremist politics that was considered a thinly disguised invocation to voters not to vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen and a recommendation to Nicolas Sarkozy not to orient his campaign so as to include themes traditionally associated with Le Pen.

Controversy over hijab

French President Jacques Chirac declared his complete rejection of the wearing of the Islamic headscarf, or hijab, by female Muslims in French schools and public corporations. He adds that he perceives a kind of hostility in the wearing of the hijab. Chirac stated that with banning the hijab, there will be more integration in French society. He has contributed in establishing a law that prohibits wearing the hijab and other religious symbols and manifestations in schools and public corporations. This has created a great controversy in France as some Muslims believe they are being discriminated against.

Life after presidency

Shortly after leaving office, he launched the Fondation Chirac in June 2008. Since then it has been striving for peace through five advocacy programmes: conflict prevention, access to water and sanitation, access to quality medicines and healthcare, access to land resources, and preservation of cultural diversity. It supports field projects that involve local people and provide concrete and innovative solutions. Chirac chairs the jury for the Prize for Conflict Prevention awarded every year by his foundation.

He also became a lifetime member of the Constitutional Council of France. He sat for the first time in the Council on 15 November 2007, six months after leaving the French Presidency. Immediately after Sarkozy's victory, Chirac moved into a 180 square meters duplex on the Quai Voltaire in Paris lent to him by the family of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. During the Didier Schuller affair, the latter accused Hariri of having participated to the illegal funding of the RPR's political campaigns, but the justice closed the case without further investigations.

On 11 April 2008, Chirac's office announced that he had undergone successful surgery to fit a pacemaker. In January 2009, it was reported that Chirac had been hospitalised after being attacked by his pet Maltese poodle. According to Chirac's wife Bernadette, the dog, named Sumo, had a history of unpredictable and vicious behavior, and had previously been medicated with antidepressants in an attempt to control it.

Embezzlement trial

On 7 March 2011, he went on trial for charges of corruption (the first former French head of state to stand trial since Philippe Pétain, who surrendered and collaborated with Nazi Germany) involving the misuse of public money during his time as mayor of Paris (1977–1995). He was accused of paying cronies and political allies for 28 jobs that did not exist. Along with Chirac, nine others stood trial in two separate cases, one dealing with fictional jobs for 21 people and the other with jobs for the remaining seven. France's current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alain Juppé, was sentenced to a 14-month suspended prison sentence for the same case in 2004.

On 15 December 2011, Chirac was found guilty and given a suspended sentence of two years. He was convicted of embezzling public funds, abuse of trust and illegal conflict of interest. The suspended sentence means he does not have to go to prison, and took into account his age, health, and status as a former head of state when determining the sentence. He did not attend his trial, since medical doctors deemed that his neurological problems damaged his memory. His defense team decided not to appeal.

As a former President, he is entitled to a lifetime pension and personal security protection, and is ex-officio a member for life of France's constitutional council.

Memoirs and popularity

In Volume 2 of his memoirs published in June 2011, Chirac mocked his successor Nicolas Sarkozy as "irritable, rash, impetuous, disloyal, ungrateful, and un-French". Chirac wrote he considered firing Sarkozy before, and conceded responsibility in allowing Jean Marie Le Pen to advance in 2002.

A poll conducted in 2010 suggested he was the most admired political figure in France, while Sarkozy was 32nd.

In culture

Impact on French popular culture

Because of Jacques Chirac's long career in visible government positions, he has often been parodied or caricatured: Young Jacques Chirac is the basis of a young, dashing bureaucrat character in the 1976 Asterix comic strip album ''Obelix and Co.'', proposing methods to quell Gallic unrest to elderly, old-style Roman politicians. Chirac was also featured in ''Le Bêbête Show'' as an overexcited, jumpy character.

Jacques Chirac is a favorite character of ''Les Guignols de l'Info'', a satiric latex puppet show. He was once portrayed as a rather likable, though overexcited, character; however, following the corruption allegations, he has been shown as a kind of dilettante and incompetent who pilfers public money and lies through his teeth. His character for a while developed a superhero alter ego, ''Super Menteur'' ("Super Liar") in order to get him out of embarrassing situations. Because of his alleged improprieties, he was lambasted in a song ''Chirac en prison'' ("Chirac in jail") by French punk band Les Wampas, with a video clip made by the ''Guignols''.

Portrayals in film

His role is played by Charles Fathy in the Oliver Stone film ''W.''

Political career

President of the French Republic: 1995–2007. Reelected in 2002.

Member of the Constitutional Council of France: Since 2007.

Governmental functions

Prime minister: 1974–1976 (Resignation) / 1986–1988.

Minister of Interior: March–May 1974.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development: 1972–1974.

Minister of Relation with Parliament: 1971–1972.

Secretary of State for Economy and Finance: 1968–1971.

Secretary of State for Social Affairs: 1967–1968.

Electoral mandates

''European Parliament''

Member of European Parliament: 1979–1980 (Resignation). Elected in 1979.

''National Assembly of France''

Member of the National Assembly of France for Corrèze: March–April 1967 (Became Secretary of State in April 1967) Reelected in 1968, 1973, but he stays minister / 1976–1986 (Became Prime minister in 1986) / 1988–1995 (Resignation, became President of the French Republic in 1995). Elected in 1967, reelected in 1968, 1973, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1988, 1993.

''General Council''

President of the General Council of Corrèze: 1970–1979. Reelected in 1973, 1976.

General councillor of Corrèze: 1968–1988. Reelected in 1970, 1976, 1982.

''Municipal Council''

Mayor of Paris: 1977–1995 (Resignation, became President of the French Republic in 1995). Reelected in 1983, 1989.

Councillor of Paris: 1977–1995 (Resignation). Reelected in 1983, 1989.

Municipal councillor of Sainte-Féréole: 1965–1977. Reelected in 1971.

Political function

President of the Rally for the Republic: 1976–1994 (Resignation).

Honours

Grand Cross of the ''Ordre de la Légion d'Honneur''

Grand Cross of the ''Ordre National du Mérite''

''Croix de la Valeur Militaire''

''Médaille de l'Aéronautique''

Chevalier of the ''Mérite agricole''

Knight of the ''Order of Arts and Letters''

Knight of the ''Ordre de l'étoile Noire'' (Bénin) (French Colonial Order)

Knight of the ''Mérite Sportif''

Grand Cross of the Order pro merito Militensis

Officier of the ''Ordre national du Québec''

Cóndor de oro

Grand Cross of the Order of St. Olav (2000)

Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 1st class (Russia, 23 September 1997) – for his great personal contribution to the development of cooperation and friendship between the peoples of Russia and France

Medal "In memory of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg"

State Prize of the Russian Federation (2007) – for outstanding achievements in the humanitarian field Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic

Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry (Portugal, 1999)

Great Star of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria

Collar of the Order of the White Lion (Czech Republic, 1997)

Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the Star of Romania (1998)

Grand Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great (Lithuania, 1997)

Knight of the Order of the Bath (UK)

Heydar Aliyev Order (Azerbaijan)

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas (24 July 2001)

Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Three Stars (Latvia)

Ig Nobel prize for peace, for commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Hiroshima with atomic bomb tests in the Pacific (1996)

Titles from birth to currently

Monsieur le ''Président de la République française'' (1995–2007)

''His Excellency The Sovereign Co-Prince of Andorra'' (1995–2007)

See also

Anh Dao Traxel

List of national leaders

Politics of France

French presidential election, 1981

French presidential election, 1988

French presidential election, 1995

French presidential election, 2002

French presidential election, 2007

Musée du Président Jacques Chirac

References

Bibliography

Emmanuel Hecht, Thierry Vey, ''Chirac de A à Z, dictionnaire critique et impertinent'', Éditions Albin Michel, ISBN 2-226-07664-6

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, ''Le pouvoir et la vie, tome 3''

Frederic Lepage, ''A Table avec Chirac''

Jacques Chirac, ''La Nouvelle-Orléans et son port en 1954'', [Presses Universitaires du Nouveau Monde], ISBN 1-931948-68-2

External links

Public opinion polls on Jacques Chirac

Biography at the Official Website of the Office of the French President

TF1 l'Express Mairie de Paris Biography and his election (2002) Some Jacques Chirac's quotations

Jacques Chirac threatened to launch nuclear attack on Iran, Der Spiegel, 19 January 2006.

Jacques Chirac – A life in pictures photo essay

Anne Applebaum, Farewell, Jacques Chirac, ''The Washington Post'', 8 May 2007

Latest news of UNITAID (initiated by Jacques Chirac) and today chaired Philippe Douste-Blazy

Articles at ''The Guardian''

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