The charter project was initiated by the President of the French Republic Jacques Chirac and prepared by a Commission headed by Yves Coppens, professor of anthropology at the Collège de France.
He was nearing the end of his first seven-year term as President, and the Charter became one of his policy promises in his campaign at the 2002 French presidential election.
[1] Chirac was re-elected, with some 80 per cent of the votes in the second round, beating Jean-Marie Le Pen.
[2] Chirac then appointed a special commission, chaired by Professor Yves Coppens, which took some two years to draft the text of the charter.
The Commission submitted its report in April 2003, with a proposed text of the charter, which was later reworked by the General Secretariat of the Government and by the cabinet of the President of the Republic.