Is Jacques Chirac a late-blooming Leftist? Or just clever as an election nears?
An old adage attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, who was a prime minister of England in the 1800s, is that a man who is not a liberal at 16 has no heart; a man who is not a conservative at 60 has no head. What does that make French President Jacques Chirac? Chirac, who will be 70 in November, appears to be doing a reverse-Disraeli. In recent weeks he has set about strongly endorsing causes typically far to the left of his conservative roots. For example, Chirac claims to have been 'traumatised' by anti-globalisation demonstrations at last month's summit of industrialised nation leaders in ...
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