Political Poker Is His Game

Jacques Chirac is in a hurry. He always has been. Of all the mannerisms that reveal him, perhaps none is more telling to a Frenchman's taste than the way he eats: furiously and fast, raising only the question of how much he savors as he dines.

Chirac has chewed his way through France's political structure at a frenzied pace. At 30, after graduation from France's elite civil service academy, L'Ecole Nationale d'Administration, he won a position on the staff of Georges Pompidou, then Charles de Gaulle's Premier. In the next decade he held five ministerial posts, and at 41 became the youngest Premier in the history of the Fifth Republic. Now, at 44, he has picked up the fallen banner--and lofty rhetoric--of le grand Charles himself.

Chirac's political turnabouts--first against Jacques Chaban-Delmas, the Gaullist candidate in 1974, then against President Valery Giscard d'Estaing--have earned him a reputation as an opportunist. Chaban still privately refers to him as a "traitor." Others have called him "Jacques the Knife," and some cynical members of Giscard's Independent Republicans characterized the dramatic rally at which he launched his renamed party as "smacking of Nuremberg." Those who know Chirac well--including foreign diplomats--are positive he is no "closet fascist," though he is staunchly conservative. He is against nationalization and NATO, for free enterprise and French nationalism. He is a strong partisan of law-and-order and calls his military service in Algeria "the most exhilarating experience in my life."

Pompidou fondly dubbed Chirac "my bulldozer." Chirac's time is spent on little but his work. He averages two weekends a month at his Correze chateau with his wife Bernadette and two daughters, Laurence, 18, and Claude, 15. He has no hobbies, plays no sport. Bristling with nervous energy, he can be brutal to his staff. He often startles visitors by leaping from behind his desk and pacing the office.

Chirac makes decisions impulsively and quickly--a trait that some observers predict will sooner or later lead him into a fatal blunder. Observes National Assembly President Edgar Faure: "Giscard plays bridge. Chirac plays poker." Gaullist leader Yves Guena looks at Chirac's propensity to take political gambles somewhat differently: "Chirac's real genius is his intuition."

For all the risks he takes, Chirac's operations are meticulously planned and executed. Before picking a new name for his party, he consulted marketing experts and conducted polls on key words. It was discovered that rassemblement was better received than mouvement. Republique and franc,aise (which was later dropped from the name because Chirac thought it suggested a challenge to the government) struck responsive chords, though democratic did not. Indeed, a computer analysis revealed that De Gaulle had used the word only nine times in all his public speeches.

A recent poll published by the newsmagazine Le Point revealed that voters find Chirac "stubborn, tough and pretentious." But a close friend cites another quality that may prove more meaningful for France: "Jacques, like a good combat leader, never retreats."

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