II.

Early Career

In 1962 Chirac was assigned to the office of Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, who was impressed by his energy and competence. At Pompidou’s suggestion, in 1967 Chirac ran as a Gaullist for a seat in the National Assembly to represent Ussel in the Corrèze region of France, where his family had originated, and was given a post in the Ministry of Social Affairs. By 1972 Chirac was Minister of Agriculture, earning a formidable reputation as a champion of French farmers’ interests.

Pompidou died in 1974, and Chirac switched his loyalty to the new president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who, though not himself a Gaullist, appointed Chirac prime minister in the same year. Chirac resigned in 1976, complaining of Giscard’s unwillingness to give him authority, and by the close of the year had founded his own party, the Rally for the Republic. In 1977, Chirac won the mayoralty of Paris, a prelude to his first bid for the presidency against Giscard in 1981. On this occasion he won 18 per cent of the vote in the first round of the elections: François Mitterrand, the Socialist candidate, won by a narrow margin in the second round to begin a presidency that was to last 14 years. However, in 1986 the Conservative parties regained control of the National Assembly, and Chirac became prime minister a second time for a period of cohabitation with the Socialist Mitterrand as president. During this tenure, Chirac put a brake on unemployment, which had exceeded 2.5 million, cut taxes on employers, abolished the wealth tax on the rich, and sold off businesses previously nationalized by the Socialists. In 1988 he again challenged Mitterrand for the presidency but was beaten at the polls, 54 per cent to 45 per cent.