In the short time since we have taken an interest in France, Jack has put together a dizzying résumé of dopey ideas, dopey laws, bad laws, disappointments, blunders, bad calls, wrong calls, climbdowns, derelictions, duplicities, scandals, disasters, chaos, and two (here and here) great big historical failures.*

It is hard not to pity Jack and his failed presidency. But we do not.

A new book, La Tragédie du président : Scènes de la vie politique (1986-2006), by American-born Franz-Olivier Giesbert, a former editor-in-chief of Le Figaro, is at once more pitying than Pave and more damning.

JACK'S SEASON IN HELL
The Dust Jacket's A Shroud

CHIRAC BLAMED FOR THE FAILINGS OF FRANCE

PARIS March 18, 2006 (Telegraph) - As the sun begins to set on the era of Jacques Chirac, students rampage in the Latin Quarter, the unions are restless and opinion polls reveal a nation that has lost all faith in its leaders. France, in other words, is much as Mr Chirac found it when he entered the Elysée in 1995.

In a fast-selling new book, a once-trusted confidant portrays him as a key cause of France's decline over the past 20 years.

Franz-Olivier Giesbert...has drawn on copious notes kept from his extraordinary access to the president and France's political establishment to describe the Chirac legacy as "a personal tragedy that has become, in the end, a national tragedy".

"May 29, 2005 was the day of Chirac's political death," he writes. "And this time it was for good, without hope of resurrection. ... He had aged 10 years in one go. Half asleep with a voice seeming to come from the grave, he wore a tie that was virtually black and he was in mourning for himself."

Given his record of un-accomplishments and non-leadership, it is easy to blame Jack for all that is wrong with France. Many wistfully believe once Jack is replaced by a more cunning politician or a mystic seagull all will be jake. But France has bigger problems than Jack. Jack has not made France what she has become, he has maintained France as he found her. Oh, but France has very much made Jack what he is.

France has embued Jack with out-sized appetites for attention! applause! glory! and concomitant dreads of risk, sacrifice, and responsibility. Of course Jack adds to these his own baneful ingredients making a comfortable career out of it all. And again France gave Jack a leg up with a political system that favors technique and tactics over ideas and vision.

Like Mr. Clinton, Jack is a politician not a leader. He is along for the ride but don't expect him to risk steering or help with a push. And like Mr. Clinton he has worried over his legacy in the newspapers while accomplishing little that history will remark.

As French tragedies go, if Jack is a tragedy, he is a small tragedy. We leave him to mourn himself.

* Our links are, of course, representative, not exhaustive.

PFFT (What is this?): One-hankie tragedy 4 | Boo-hoo 0 | Rayonnement français 0

Uh yah... you guys suck. Someone should pave your face. Pwned!

AHHHH ANIMAL HOUSE

Could this be a jacquerie against Jacques?

Andy,

A pun I missed. But will soon steal. Gracias.

DGB