Mrs. Chirac

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A Chirac (She, Not He) Is Campaigning for Re-election
By ELAINE SCIOLINO

President and Representative Chirac


Published: March 9, 2004


CORRÈZE, France, March 8 — Bernadette Chirac cast off her bodyguards and her chauffeur, donned her brown suede Chanel boots and a fur-trimmed jacket and hit the road.

The campaign season for regional elections in France officially opened on Monday, and Mrs. Chirac is campaigning hard — not for her husband, President Jacques Chirac, but for herself.

For a quarter of a century, Mrs. Chirac has been a local official in Corrèze, a farming area smack in the middle of France where she and her husband have a chateau. Despite her husband's suggestion that at 71 she is getting too old for the job, she is seeking a fifth six-year term.

"My husband literally said to me, `Isn't this one time too many?' " she said as she sped along winding roads in her 25-year-old, fire-engine red Peugeot 205. "I didn't answer."

As she spoke, she swerved to avoid an oncoming minitruck.

The first round of the elections is March 21, with the runoff a week later. The opposition parties hope to use them as a vehicle to assess the strength of the first two years of Mr. Chirac's second term.

But the regional representatives have only limited power, over some educational issues and the development of the country's infrastructure, tourism and the environment. The representatives of the much smaller districts, of which Mrs. Chirac is one, have even less authority.

Mrs. Chirac has made her mark on the area in concrete but small ways. Thanks to her intervention, the Tour de France came through Corrèze in both 1998 and 2001, a swimming pool was built here and the aging but well-loved rock icon Johnny Hallyday gave a concert here last year that attracted 30,000 spectators.

The main problem for the area — the flight of its youth to the cities, where there are job opportunities — has not been tackled, either by Mrs. Chirac or her husband's administration, but that is not likely to hurt her re-election chances.

She certainly does not seem to need or want her husband at her side on the campaign trail. The French press reported that she really wanted to run for the Senate in September but that Mr. Chirac told her it was out of the question because of her age. She intends to stay by herself at the chateau, which has no staff, until the elections are over.

Even though she carries a cellphone that the Élysée Palace staff pressured her to take while campaigning, she does not necessarily turn it on. She did not share the number with her husband, because, she said: "He'd be calling me every 15 minutes. If he calls me at night and can't find me, too bad. I'm never at home anyway."

Over lunch, she said, "Yes, I am his wife, but I have a very tiny existence as well."

Certainly it is not hard for the president's wife to run a campaign on her own. The longest stop on the one-day tour for journalists on Monday was the Museum of President Jacques Chirac, a state-of-the art structure in the town of Sarran used largely to house the gifts he has received during his presidency.

Among the 4,000 objects are handmade black cowboy boots from former President Clinton, New York City firefighter helmets from former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and a hand-painted, gold-trimmed Lenox bowl from the first President Bush.

Diamonds and emeralds from the Saudi royal family and other gold and diamond objects from the gulf Arabs compete for attention with a wood statue of St. Blaise from Paraguay, rolled-up carpets from around the world and a rare, preserved coelacanth fish from the Comoros islands.

In Paris, Mrs. Chirac can be so moody that members of her husband's staff complain that she sometimes does not even say hello to them in the corridors of Élysée Palace, particularly before lunchtime.

"I am a perfectionist," she said in an interview in Elle magazine in January. "This is typical of my character."

As first lady, she told Elle, she deals with the maintenance problems of the "roofs, fireplaces and gutters" of the Élysée, enjoys spending time on floral arrangements and sometimes lunches with friends or has appointments in couture fashion houses. "To try on a long dress or a suit, that takes time," she said.

She can also be downright rude. Asked in an interview in January to describe the three hats she wore — as first lady, an elected official and the leader of a charitable foundation for young people — she replied tartly, "I never wear hats."

But in Corrèze, she easily transformed herself into a woman of the people, who pressed local officials to brag about their accomplishments. "I am a movie director today!" she exclaimed.

The temporary disappearance of the two security officers who guard Mrs. Chirac is a gesture to prove she is no different from other regional candidates in the country, who do not enjoy such protection, she said.

By contrast, while driving in the car on Monday, she said of her role as first lady, "I am a prisoner of my position."

On a pig farm, she lectured her audience about how the pig is the animal closest to humans and cuddled a squealing, 2-day-old speckled specimen. "It's beautiful, this one!" she cried balancing the piglet with her large brown Chanel handbag. "Who wants to hold it?"

Mrs. Chirac's Corrèze life has helped her to shed her image as the long-suffering helpmate. In addition, she won plaudits for campaigning tirelessly for her husband in the presidential campaign of 2002 and publishing an autobiography in 2001 that even alluded to her husband's extramarital affairs. "I have been jealous at times, very!" she said in "Conversation," a question-and-answer dialogue with an editor of Le Figaro. "How could it be otherwise. This was a very handsome guy, with the gift of words besides."

Because of the children and for other family reasons, she decided not to dissolve the marriage. "Convention dictated that one put up a facade and hung on," she said. In any case, she said, "I warned him several times: the day Napoleon abandoned Josephine, he lost it all."

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Now that's an ugly baby. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

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