PARIS -- After a majority of French voters handed President Jacques Chirac a defeat by voting no in a referendum on the proposed EU constitution, he kept his fingers crossed in the hope that Paris would be chosen to host the 2012 Games. You can imagine his disappointment when the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to London.
On July 14 the president traditionally holds an hourlong TV interview with two media stars to commemorate the fall of the Bastille, which marked the beginning of the 1789 Revolution. This year it must have been a difficult moment for Chirac. Twenty months into his second term his popularity has dropped to an all-time low, with 66 percent of the electorate opposing him and just 28 percent backing him.
Although Chirac could have quit in the wake of the referendum defeat, as President Charles de Gaulle did in April 1969 after he lost a referendum, he decided to stay in office. Instead, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin stepped down even though no one thought he was responsible for the failure.