Chirac's internal policies initially included lower tax rates, the removal of price controls, strong punishment for crime and terrorism, and business privatisation.

Chirac was known for his stand against the American-led invasion of Iraq, his recognition of the collaborationist French government's role in deporting Jews, and his reduction of the presidential term from seven years to five through a referendum in 2000.

[20] In 1953, after graduating from the Sciences Po, he attended a non-credit course at Harvard University's summer school, before entering the École nationale d'administration, which trains France's top civil servants, in 1957.

[26] After some months in the ministry for 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.

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.

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.

[30] 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).

"[38] Foccart, who had also co-founded the Gaullist SAC militia (dissolved by Mitterrand in 1982 after the Auriol massacre) 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 the deaths of 19 militants.

[43] 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 centre and thus forcing Balladur to radicalise himself.

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.

The possibility of a further attempt foundered after Chirac was forced into cohabitation with a Socialist-led cabinet between 1997 and 2002, then poor Franco-American relations after the French UN veto threat over Iraq in 2003 made transatlantic negotiations impossible.

On 25 July 2000, as Chirac and the first lady were returning from the G7 Summit in Okinawa, Japan, they were placed in a dangerous situation by Air France Flight 4590 after they landed at Charles de Gaulle International Airport.

While the Giscardian liberals of the Union for French Democracy (UDF) had moved to the right,[citation needed] the UMP won the parliamentary elections that followed the presidential poll with ease.

[58] In October 2004, Chirac signed a trade agreement with PRC president Hu Jintao where Alstom was given €1 billion in contracts and promises of future investment in China.

Along with Vladimir Putin (whom he called "a personal friend"),[61] Hu Jintao, and Gerhard Schröder, Chirac emerged as a leading voice against George W. Bush and Tony Blair in 2003 during the organisation and deployment of American and British forces participating in a military coalition to forcibly remove the government of Iraq controlled by the Ba'ath Party under the leadership of Saddam Hussein that resulted in the 2003–2011 Iraq War.

Despite British and American 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.

[65] Whereas the disagreement on Iraq had caused a rift between Paris and Washington, recent analysis suggests that both governments worked closely together on the Syria file to end the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, and that Chirac was a driver of this diplomatic cooperation.

[70] 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 communes 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 intended to appease the protesters while giving the appearance of not making a volte-face regarding the contract, and therefore to continue his support for his prime minister Dominique de Villepin.

Immediately after Sarkozy's victory, Chirac moved into a 180-square-metre (1,900 sq ft) duplex on the Quai Voltaire in Paris lent to him by the family of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

[79] 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".

[88] A requiem mass was held at Saint-Sulpice on 30 September, celebrated by Michel Aupetit, Archbishop of Paris, and attended by representatives from about 175 countries, included 69 past and present heads of state, government and international organisations.

Notable names included António Guterres, Jean-Claude Juncker, Jens Stoltenberg, Vladimir Putin, Sergio Mattarella, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Charles Michel, Viktor Orbán, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Saad Hariri, Borut Pahor, Salome Zourabichvili, Tony Blair, Jean Chrétien, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Bill Clinton, Hamid Karzai, Dai Bingguo plus many ministers.

[93] He was originally portrayed as a rather likeable, though overexcited, character; following the corruption allegations, however, he was depicted as a kind of dilettante and incompetent who pilfered public money and lied through his teeth.

[95] Similarly, the band Sinsemilia lambasted Chirac in the song Bienvenue en Chiraquie ("Welcome to Chirac-land") as being the leader of a political mafia behaving outside of the laws applicable to normal citizenry.

[101] 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.

Investigations concerning the running of Paris's city hall, the number of whose municipal employees increased 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.

[107] On 7 March 2011, he went on trial on charges of diverting public funds, accused of giving fictional city jobs to 28 activists from his political party while serving as the mayor of Paris (1977–95).

[citation needed] In 1954, Chirac presented The Development of the Port of New-Orleans, a short geography/economic thesis to the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po—), which he had entered three years before.

(27 May 1974 – 25 August 1976) (20 March 1986 – 12 May 1988) On 22 July 2003, Jacques Chirac was presented with the inaugural Kuala Lumpur World Peace Award by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at his office.