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The Presidents of France, by Julia Rosch

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Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy - 1995 until today

In 1995, the Gaullist Jacques Chirac defeated the Socialist Lionel Jospin. Chirac remained as President until 2007. He shortened the time in office of the French President from seven to five years and abolished general conscription. In 1995, he announced nuclear testing in the South Pacific with the aim of deploying the French Army more intensively with peace missions with Britain and France. His second term in office was characterised by measures for strengthening domestic security which the Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy introduced. When he spoke out against war in Iraq the UN Security Council, relations cooled noticeably between France and the allied USA and Great Britain. After the failure of the referendum on the EU constitution in 2005, France became an outsider in the EU.

On 6th May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy, who stood for the Gaullist traditions, won the elections against the Socialist Ségolène Royal. Shortly afterwards he announced: "Today, France has returned to Europe". Nicolas Sarkozy was previously Interior Minister under Jacques Chirac. In this role he had lost favour when he took a hard line against youths from the suburbs who had turned to crime. This made him quits in the election campaign by promising modernisation and radical reforms. Shortly after his election victory, he criticised the European Central Bank, championed a weaker euro and wanted the EU stability pact eased in order to lift France from its debt trap. Thus, he drew displeasure from the rest of the EU member states with Germany leading the way. In conjunction with Spain, Sarkozy championed the re-modelling of the Barcelona Process and promoted the idea of a Union for the Mediterranean. On 13th July 2008, the European Head of State and the countries bordering the Mediterranean, under the Chairmanship of the EU French Presidency, launched the Union of the Mediterranean. At the same time, the European Presidency offered him the chance to prove his able to compromise and to reinforce France's role in Europe.

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