The end of the Chirac era

Michaela Wiegel discerns "two ruptures in French foreign policy" which appeared during Chirac's term in office. "The first rupture, the quarrel with America over the war in Iraq, was consciously brought about by Chirac. The second was France's renunciation of the European integration process... It was Chirac, whose political career was so deeply influenced by the Cold War, who broke away from the thought patterns of the era, in which maintaining a balance between the blocks was the main objective. For the first time since the Suez crisis of 1956, Chirac risked breaking the alliance of solidarity with America when, in the midst of the Iraq crisis, he threatened to exercise France's power of veto in the UN Security Council. France's attempts to unite the great powers of Russia and China, European partners like Germany and Belgium, and a number of Latin American and African states in a kind of counter-alliance were without precedent. Unlike Gerhard Schröder, who was fighting for votes, Chirac - well-versed in foreign policy - wasn't just trying to endorse the pacifist impulses of his fellow countrymen."

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