Parody of a procrastinator

The holiday season in France brought a new gift for the political malcontent who has everything: Jacques Pote (pronounced "jackpot"), a board game that lampoons France's unpopular president, Jacques Chirac, and his alleged political chicanery.

Rumours of political pay-offs and back-stabbing, unproved financial scandals, innuendoes about malfeasance and corruption — the dirty laundry is all here, presented in a completely biased and unfair way. The game board is emblazoned with a caricature of Chirac as a one-armed bandit.

"I thought it would be a perfect gift for some of my friends. That's why I bought five of them," said Philippe Gerdolle, 66, vice-president of a medical action group.

"The game is a joke, but it shows that after 40 years in politics, he became imbued with corruption. It's lasted too long. We've had enough." The game went on sale recently, for €10, about $13. It may end up a cult classic, but the underlying sentiments are mainstream.

With Chirac down to the last four months of his second term, many people in France say his 12-year lease on the Elysee Palace has expired. He has yet to announce whether he will run again.

Do-nothing presidency

"It's not that we don't like him, but he lacks charisma. And he never has any new ideas," said Anissa Benhamidi, 22, a biochemistry student. "He looks good, he's tall and classy, but he's tired. He did nothing for two terms, and now we've had enough."

Her friend, Lydie Gammalame, 20, echoed the common complaint that Chirac has largely disappeared, leaving the impression of an obsolete, do-nothing presidency.

"We don't see him anymore. We don't hear him anymore," said Gammalame, a baker. "I don't want to say he's useless, but he's not doing anything."

Many analysts trace the collapse of Chirac's presidency to May 2005, when French voters rejected the European Union's proposed constitution in a referendum on which the president had staked his prestige.

Some saw the result as a vote of no confidence and suggested that Chirac should resign, following the example of Charles de Gaulle.

Chirac held on, but he effectively became a lame duck — a situation worsened by a mini-stroke he suffered in September 2005 that raised questions about his health.

His travails added another element — Chirac fatigue — to the so-called French malaise, the widespread sense in France that the nation's glory days are behind it and nothing is going right: Paris lost its bid to host the 2012 Olympics; minority and immigrant communities have erupted in car-torching riots; students and labour unions launched the biggest strikes in decades over a government jobs bill; unemployment remained stubbornly high at around 10 per cent; and France lost the World Cup soccer final, an outcome made even worse by the team captain's unsportsmanlike conduct.

Peoplespeak

In recent interviews, French voters suggested that Chirac is incapable of setting things right.

"He is from another era, with old methods," said Emmanuelle Brechet, 28, an import-export agent from Annecy, in the French Alps. "France needs fresh blood if we want things to change."

Whether Chirac was the victim of circumstances or their architect, he paid the price. His approval rating plummeted from 46 per cent before the referendum to 32 per cent a month after it to 17 per cent last May, the lowest for a president of the Fifth Republic since its founding in 1958.

In polls last month, 38 per cent of respondents said they approved of Chirac, but only 25 per cent expressed confidence in him.

"Because he's in charge, he carries the blame whether he deserves it or not," said Nicole Bacharan, an analyst at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris.

"He made great speeches that pointed to real issues and then did nothing. There is a general sense that the man knew how to get to power — he has incredible political instincts — but once he got power, he didn't know what to do with it."

An aide to Chirac acknowledged that there had been rough times.

"There was a period when, with a combination of the referendum and diverse negative events, the opinion polls were very low, but they have been going up quite quickly for a couple of months now," said the aide, who spoke on the condition of strict anonymity.

Chirac has not always been unpopular. His approval rating was above 80 per cent in the run-up to the Iraq war, when France threatened to use its veto in the UN Security Council to block a US-backed resolution authorising military action.

Chirac drew wide support for his argument that Europe should act as a counterbalance to US global supremacy, as well as for his defence of French culture.

"When it comes to public opinion," said Jean-Luc Parodi, a leading political analyst and pollster, "there are two Chiracs: the Chirac of foreign affairs — the Chirac who said no to the war in Iraq — and he is very popular ... (and) the Chirac of social and economic performance, and here is where we find the pessimism in French political opinion."

Public frustration is all the more acute because of the hopes that accompanied Chirac's first election as president in 1995.
In his inaugural address, he vowed to heal the "scars, fractures and inequalities" caused by France's chronically high unemployment. He would remain close to the people, he pledged, and not become a monarchical president.

Despite a lacklustre first term, marred by corruption investigations that Chirac evaded by invoking presidential immunity, he was re-elected in 2002 with more than 82 per cent of the vote.

Inevitable comparisons

The victory was not as resounding as it appeared. Chirac won less than 20 per cent of the vote in the first round in a contest by 16 candidates. But in a stunning upset, the far-right anti-immigrant candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen came in second, with 17 per cent.

In the winner-take-all run-off a month later, parties of every stripe reluctantly backed Chirac to block a Le Pen victory. On election day, some of the voters wore clothespins on their noses. Others carried signs which read, "Vote for the crook, not the fascist."

Political analysts and voters said Chirac's image has also been damaged recently by the inevitable comparisons to the new crop of presidential candidates, particularly Nicolas Sarkozy, 51, head of Chirac's governing party, the Union for a Popular Movement, and Segolene Royal, 53, the Socialist Party candidate. Both are overwhelmingly exploiting their youth and vigour as they promise deep reforms and a new generation of leadership.

Many of Chirac's liabilities are chronicled in the board game Jacques Pote, which means Jacques's Buddy. Players roll a dice and move ahead to squares illustrated with people and events from Chirac's career. Land on a battle with Sarkozy, and go back six spaces; land on the stroke, and lose three turns.

The winner is the first to reach the last square, where Chirac is re-elected in 2007 after an international crisis that causes the country to rally around him.

"It's a prediction," said Pierre-Francois Divier, the public interest attorney who created the game. I decided to make it a humorous, satiric game, because people feel they can't do anything about Chirac, so the best thing is to laugh about him."