France News

President Jacques Chirac, one of the world's oldest leaders, celebrated his 73rd birthday on Tuesday, 29th November. However, in Le Monde newspaper instead of honoring him they pitied his weakness and ill-health saying this was "the difficult end of his reign".

Chirac's popularity among his people is diminishing according to recent polls. This decline allegedly started when voters rejected his proposal for an European constitution in a May referendum, continued in July when he failed to secure the 2012 Olympic Games for Paris and was not helped by the fact that he remained virtually absent from the political scene at the start of the rioting in France in November. It is even claimed that many of his own centre-right voters have written him off.

In September Chirac also suffered from what were believed to be "stroke-like symptoms" but more information regarding the cause of this problem has never been divulged.

After 10 years in office forecasters predict that he is unlikely to run for a third mandate in 2007 after record high levels of popularity were recorded when he opposed the invasion of Iraq. Nowadays, however, he leaves more and more to his chosen heir, Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, 52.

The current frontrunner to succeed Chirac is Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, 50, who has been gaining popularity after his hard-line politics during the riots.