Editing Jacques Chirac (section)

==== Juppé ministry ====
[[File:Clintonchirac.jpg|thumb|Chirac with US president [[Bill Clinton]] outside the [[Élysée Palace]], 1999]]

During the [[1995 French presidential election|1995 presidential campaign]], Chirac criticised the "sole thought" ({{lang|fr|[[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 [[Political radicalism|radicalise]] himself. Ultimately, he obtained more votes than Balladur in the first round (20.8 per cent), and then defeated the [[Socialist Party (France)|Socialist]] candidate [[Lionel Jospin]] in the second round (52.6 per cent).

Chirac was elected on a platform of tax cuts and job programmes, but his policies did little to ease the labour strikes during his first months in office. 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. At about the same time, it became apparent that Juppé and others had obtained preferential conditions for public housing, as well as other perks. At the year's end, Chirac faced [[1995 strikes in France|major workers' strikes]] which turned, in November–December 1995, into a [[general strike]], one of the largest since May 1968. The demonstrations were largely pitted against Juppé's plan for pension reform, and ultimately led to his dismissal.

Shortly after taking office, Chirac{{spaced ndash}}undaunted by international protests by environmental groups{{spaced ndash}}insisted upon the resumption of [[France and weapons of mass destruction|nuclear tests at Mururoa Atoll]] in [[French Polynesia]] in 1995, a few months before signing the [[Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.acronym.org.uk/a09comp.htm |title=Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty |publisher=Acronym.org.uk |access-date=20 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090725044325/http://www.acronym.org.uk/a09comp.htm |archive-date=25 July 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Reacting to criticism, Chirac said, "You only have to look back at 1935...There were people then who were against France arming itself, and look what happened." On 1 February 1996, Chirac announced that France had ended "once and for all" its nuclear testing and intended to accede to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Elected as President of the Republic, he refused to discuss the existence of French military bases in Africa, despite requests by the [[Ministry of the Armies (France)|Ministry of Defence]] and the [[Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (France)|Ministry of Foreign Affairs]].<ref name="Smith" /> The French Army thus remained in Côte d'Ivoire as well as in [[Omar Bongo]]'s Gabon.
[[File:Vladimir Putin 2 July 2001-5.jpg|thumb|right|Chirac with Russian president [[Vladimir Putin]], 2001]]
[[File:Chirac and Schroeder on the Neva.jpg|thumb|Chirac with German federal chancellor [[Gerhard Schröder]], 2003]]